Draw Your Swords
by TheCheeryCherry
Summary: Jon and Daenerys are competing for a coveted work position at Lannister Corp. but their rivalry will surprise them both by turning into something entirely different. "What do I want?" He ran a hand through his hair in complete frustration. "You know. What do you want?" She stared at him blankly, unable to get the word out – You.
1. Shall we Begin?

This is a duplicate of what I've put on AooO but thought I'd put here too in case anyone doesn't use that. Let me know what you think! Should be a quick update hopefully :)

* * *

On reflection it was absolutely stupid of both of them to think that they could get through the next few weeks with the same disregard for each other. They were thrust together with a scenario so twisted that it could only be described as fate.

Daenerys was in the middle of her morning routine of coffee, cat feeding, jogging and looking at her stocks – okay, she had a _long_ morning routine – when the beginning began for her. Her phone was ringing with the number she didn't particularly like answering in the morning, it could be _extremely_ distracting. A tight sigh escaped her as she answered it.

"Yes?" She started as they always did, like it was the middle of their conversation. They never felt a need for pleasantries, because it wasn't what they were built for.

"Where are you?" His voice came out more urgent than usual and so Daenerys was assuming this was either an emergency or this was an early booty call.

"At home."

"You need to get your sweet ass over here." Ah, it was the latter then.

"Daario, I think sex before work is a bit tasteless. During work though, well, that's another matter -,"

"Get to the office. There's some good shit going down."

She couldn't show her excitement on the phone, but her heart was skipping in the way it was supposed to beat when you were in the presence of the person you loved. She only ever felt this way when it was about work; could this be the big break she had been ever so patiently waiting for?

"When you say 'good shit', does this mean I'll enjoy it?" She spoke slowly, carefully choosing her words to sound collected and professional as always when really all she wanted to do was scream expletives down the phone.

"Oh, baby," Even he was getting excited at just telling her this. She could tell he was licking his lips. "You're going to fucking love it."

"Twenty minutes," She hung up the phone right after that so she could then let out a high-pitched squeal of excitement. She picked up her nearest cat, Drogon, with a continued noise that would have upset or confused most animals.

"Your mother is going to get the greatest news today, I can feel it!"

* * *

Twenty minutes was a _bit_ of a stretch in terms of getting to work, especially as she had a twenty minute walk there. This walk was nothing to complain about though; she was incredibly lucky to live in a beautiful flat in London centre – one of the few things she had her brother to thank for.

Twenty-five minutes later, not looking as polished as she usually did with her blonde hair tied back and her face bare, she was running through the doors of Lannister Enterprises fumbling through her bag for her electronic pass. Of course when you're running through the lobby of the biggest corporation in London, if not the entire United Kingdom, it would help to look where you're going, as Daenerys found out when she bumped right into the key counterpart to her coming story.

 _Jon Snow_.

His name was as icy as he was to be around. His gruff, completely northern way of speaking was difficult for Daenerys to understand at times. She found herself uncomfortable around him, not because he was cold with her, as she assumed he didn't intend to be that way at all – it was more that everything about him; his looks and mannerisms were completely foreign to her. He was appealing in all these ways, but foreign like a destination that you wouldn't dare travel to despite its' prettiness.

"Hello, Jon," She was already attempting to move through the gates with her pass as she spoke, not really interested in the response.

"Daenerys," He gave a polite nod. He was always so polite, but without smiles. It was like he didn't know how to just like she didn't know how to be around him.

Due to this small disruption, she had now missed the lift and was forced to wait with others, including Jon, for the next one. He chose to stand near to her much to her dismay. Didn't he have somewhere else to stand? Or did he actually have something to say? The prospect of him _wanting_ to say something to her was shocking.

She furiously kept pressing the button to call the lift as she realized her overly-polite self couldn't stand in silence with Jon. She would have to bring up something resembling small talk, like 'Isn't the weather great today?' or 'The traffic was terrible this morning!'

"I think you just need to press it the once." She turned her head back around to find Jon looking at her with the slightest hint of amusement. It made her even more uncomfortable when he tried to do things like that, because it always, without fail, caught her completely off-guard and she couldn't think of what to say.

The lift doors opened as some sort of response to his wit and as she stood still, he walked in before her. As she moved to stand at the front of the lift, she couldn't help but turn to see if he was still wearing that tiny smirk on his face – he wasn't. His eyes though, that were so focused on what was in front of him flittered over to meet hers. She felt the tiny, inaudible inhale she gave as she snapped her head back around with a determined focus on the doors in front of her.

Her stride became unwavering from her purpose as she left the lift. She needed to know what this 'good shit' was and so she kept her eyes trained on Daario's office waiting for him to look up and see her. It turned out she didn't really need Daario to inform her at that point though.

"Tyrion's the only one who has come in today." She heard one person whisper near her.

"They've kept it under wraps, but it's going to be all over the news by tonight." Another person said.

Surveying the office and Daenerys could see that everyone seemed to be talking about different things, but she felt like they were all related. In fact the office was busier than usual. _What the hell was going on?_

"Daenerys?" She swivelled around to see the personal assistant of one of the Lannisters, but she couldn't remember exactly whom she served. "Mr. Lannister would like to see you in his office."

"I'm assuming that's Tyrion?" Daenerys asked, following on with what she had heard the gossip saying. The PA gave a nervous laugh as if seeing she should have explained it further or, to Daenerys' realization, for a reason relating to what was going on.

Daenerys followed after the PA, noticing a few people suddenly giving her attention. Daario was even finally looking up at her with an almost mischievous grin on his face. The walk felt longer than it should have been; the stares clearly impacting the length of the walk. The PA went to open the door and announce her arrival, but Daenerys got to the handle first and walked in with the hopes that it would make her look more important than she was.

"You asked to see me?" Daenerys called out to the back of the chair. Tyrion was known to sit facing the window quite a lot and due to his short height when he did that you couldn't even see the top of his head.

"Ah, yes, we've been waiting for you." _We_? Her eyes flashed to both chairs sat in front of the desk and she could now see someone else was sat in the room with them. She had gotten the impression outside that Tyrion was the only Lannister in today, but gossip was usually wrong.

She was ready to stride over to see when the person calmly turned their head around. Jon Snow. Again? And why? What the fuck was he doing here? Her head was spinning fast with all the possibilities as to why she was being pulled into the office, but she had to relax her face quickly as Tyrion turned around to face them.

"Take a seat, Daenerys."

She lowered herself in her seat with a forced smile, trying to ignore Jon.

"I'm sure you might have already heard what is going on today." She gave a polite shake of her head as she noticed Jon didn't react at all. Why was he here again? "Well, let me tell you, so we can get on with the real reason you're here… My sister died on Saturday night."

Daenerys hadn't expected that at all. She turned to Jon to see that he had shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair as well. No wonder the whole office was going crazy with this.

She didn't really ever see Cersei around the office, because she was just seemingly so important and so this news didn't exactly upset her, but made her think - the CEO of the whole company had just died and… and what did this have to do with her?

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Jon spoke quietly, before Daenerys had even processed the information. He said it so much more sincerely than she ever could and so she simply joined in his sentiments.

"Yes, I can't believe this, I'm so sorry." Tyrion put a hand up as a sign that he didn't need to hear them.

"Please, don't. I had no love or care for my sister." He paused, as if realizing how that sounded. "I can say that freely as she died of natural causes. A heart attack… Anyway, you'll hear all about it on the news I'm sure."

There was a silence. She hated that her head was going to this place already, but she wondered if this meant things were going to be changing around here and was that why she was here? Her heart was beating fast all over again.

"My brother, Jaime, is taking some time off work to mourn, but when he is back he will be the rightful CEO and I will be assisting him with the position. I imagine a few people will be leaving their positions soon due to… Well, quite frankly, being of their position due to my sister's choosing, but immediately we will be needing a new Managing Director to assist with what we're left with."

Managing Director? That was Tyrion's old position. That was about as high up the ladder you could get without owning the company! Oh… but Jon was here too. No, no, no, no, no.

Do. Not. Say. It.

"Now this is where it gets complicated. We want to take the company in a different direction than it was going. We want to have a great reputation again." He cleared his throat and Daenerys gripped the chair arm waiting for what was coming next. "You have both been gradually working your way up the ladder and I believe you both possess the character we are looking for, but are you there yet? We want to see. For the next month we would like you both to work in the position and then we'll decide who, if either of you, is suitable to take the position full-time."

"That's not a common practice!"

"I'm not sure how that would work?"

Daenerys and Jon's statements were blurted out at the same time when clearly what they both meant to say was 'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?'

This rather controlled outburst didn't phase Tyrion at all, but with a quick glance at Jon she could confirm that he felt just as tricked into this as she was.

"We're simply trying to change the wheel here and give you both a fair trial. We want to see how you work together and give you tasks where you can compete with each other." To the astonishment of Daenerys, he seemed to be absolutely smitten with his own idea. "Come on, it'll be fun."

 _Fun_? Fun? FUN?!

Yes, she was sure this was about as much fun as stapling your mouth together or giving birth or being burned alive. She couldn't fucking wait to spend quality time with Jon Snow, someone she was completely uncomfortable around, whilst the promise of a new position was dangled over her and could be snatched away by the exact same man!

"Now of course, myself, the Commercial Director, plus the Strategic Operations Director will be both training you and observing your progress."

Daenerys zoned out for a second then. Strategic Operations Director? Hmm… last time she checked that was Daario. _Oh, Jon, you're going to be a squished bug at the end of this._

"Great, when do we start?" Daenerys announced with a sudden amount of enthusiasm that caused both Tyrion and Jon to jump out of being startled. Oops, Tyrion had clearly still been speaking.

"Uhm… Well, right away. There will be some intensive training today to show what is expected of you and then -,"

"Jon and I can have a meeting tomorrow morning to decide how we want to tackle this? I'm sure tonight we will have a lot of information to process."

Tyrion blinked a few times and Jon stared on at Daenerys with what looked like to her as annoyance.

"Yes, that seems logical." He nodded. "Right, shall we begin?"

Daenerys eyed Jon before giving her own agreement to this. He looked just as focused as Daenerys felt.

"Yes, let's get started."

Daenerys followed that with a nod and so their beginning had begun.


	2. Snow

_'Running from the start and here we are again.'_

* * *

It had truly been an exhausting twenty-four hours and it was leading to Jon walking around in a dreamlike state, because how could this be his new world now?

Firstly his CEO had died and funnily, as funny as death could be, this was not the most important thing that had happened to him. Sure, it was now on the news as Tyrion had promised, not really due to the fact that she was a CEO, but was also known for her days of being a model, but written on paper this seemed like a pretty big deal for Jon's life.

However being told that you may get the most major promotion that you would get in your life, but you had to first compete with a girl who looked like she wanted to grind you up and spit you back out… Well, that was certainly more monumental.

Yesterday had been a blur of training and warnings and violet eyes staring at him with curiosity over how he was going to react under the stress of it all or whatever she was trying to achieve with that gruelling stare.

Jon promised himself he would not get stressed over this, he couldn't let himself. This was something he had worked so hard for. He had started from the bottom of the company and now it seemed like he was finally being recognized for the intensive work he had put into this job. Daenerys though… She had the fancy education and the charisma, not to mention her sheer determination – could he compete with that?

"Hello?" His phone had buzzed him out of his half-awake, half-asleep state on his forty-five minute train commute. He wasn't even quite sure who was calling.

"Hey, mate," The welcoming voice of his cousin, Robb, woke him up properly. "Did I wake you up from your beauty sleep?"

"Kind of?"

"Nah, you're beautiful just the way you are." Jon let out a soft laugh at this as Robb did too.

Robb was like Jon's brother more than anything else; in fact all his cousins were like siblings. After his difficult and strange start in life, he appreciated the family he did have more than anything. He probably had a stronger bond with them than most people did with their own immediate families and that made him feel very lucky indeed.

"Listen, I was just ringing, because I heard something about a dead CEO? Yours, right?" Jon nodded before remembering he was on a phone. Vocal communication was actually necessary.

"Yeah, it was."

"Some scary shit. Bet work is fun, eh?"

Jon realized in that moment that he had to tell Robb about what was going on at work now otherwise when he eventually did tell his whole family, he would never hear the end of 'how he should have fucking told everyone sooner' a rant by Robb Stark (along with all other Stark members).

"Uhm… Yeah, I might be getting a promotion." The news sounded heartbreakingly bad when Jon uttered the words that it was no wonder there was a laugh that came down the other end of the phone.

"Why do I feel like I shouldn't be congratulating you on that?"

"I _might_ be. It's between me and this other girl who is…"

"Hot? Yeah, that's got to be tough." Jon gave an almost exasperated laugh at that. Even if that was something he even remotely felt, it wasn't something he could possibly think about right now or ever.

"Determined. It's going to be a difficult road to getting chosen."

Determined was, of course, putting it lightly. He knew she had games and mind tricks up her sleeve and that wasn't the way he was used to playing. His mind refocused on the fact that he was due to have a meeting with Daenerys first thing that morning – he needed to be very prepared.

"Jon, you're determined too." The sudden turn in seriousness took time for Jon to get adjusted to. "If anyone deserves this break, it's you."

"Thanks, Robb."

"Now… Arya has amazingly chosen to go to a London university. I'll be taking her -," Jon had to interrupt that bizarre piece of information.

"Hold on, hold on. Arya moving down South? I don't think London is ready for her." Jon commented with a chuckle. He couldn't imagine the most northern by nature cousin of his getting by with the accents of the southerners and general way of doing things. It had been enough of a challenge for Jon, let alone Arya.

Sansa was in her final year of university at Oxford, so she visited London quite frequently and her and Jon would meet up sometimes. Sansa had been dreaming of coming down to London for years, so this was always expected. Jon had just moved down here when he first started working for Lannister Enterprises, so there wasn't much of a choice there. Arya moving down was just shocking though.

"Yeah, we'll see how long that fucking lasts. Sansa's excited, even if she's acting like she's not, but I'm sure Arya'll need to escape to yours as often as possible." Jon was continuing to laugh at that image, but getting a little distracted by the fact he knew he was approaching the train's final destination being his own stop as well. "Anyway, I'm taking her down, so we need dinner and drinks. Do you have time for us anymore?"

"I should be able to fit you in." Jon retorted with a smile, as he stood up to get to the train doors to beat the mad rush that was inevitable in London. "No, I look forward to it. When are you coming?"

"We'll be down next weekend; I'll keep you posted." Jon was happy he had something to look forward to now, because the next few weeks at work were bound to be torturous. "Anyway I better get ready for work now. Text you later."

"Yeah, see you later."

Jon hung up the phone, feeling more grateful than he would ever be able to tell Robb for that phone call. It was the pinch of relaxed reality he needed before he walked right into the Dragon's Den that was his meeting with Daenerys.

* * *

Of course she had to make a point by already waiting for him in the meeting room. He was always early for work and today was no exception; he was fifteen minutes early for his meeting with Daenerys, but she had sent him an email five minutes before he arrived to say that she was in the conference room waiting for him.

He hadn't booked this room for their meeting today, but looking in to the window he knew that it was far too large a room for a meeting between just two people. He could see Daenerys through the blinds that were half open; it contorted her image slightly, but he could see that her hair was pushed off her face again today and she was wearing the blue blazer that she seemed to wear whenever there was a big multi-departmental meeting. Not that he really paid attention to what people wore or her in particular.

He took a deep breath and re-positioned his notebook so that it was underneath his arm. And then he illogically knocked on the door. This was his meeting as well, he shouldn't be knocking as if he needed permission, so he went in right after knocking. She looked up in surprise as if she was about to call out 'Come in'.

Of course she was sat at the very far side of the long table, so that he would have to walk all the way across the room towards her. He knew she was attempting to show how much more powerful she was than him by having him do all the walking. He cleared his throat, returning her stare before closing the door behind him.

"Hello, Jon," She said in her overly polite, smooth voice, gesturing to the chair to her right. He began to approach her, taking long strides to get to his chair as soon as possible.

"Daenerys," He said in an attempt to return her greeting. He was sure it came out as a gruff and probably showcased how little he wanted to be in this room right now.

He took his seat, all the while being watched by Daenerys. She had this natural upward turn to her lips that made her look like she was constantly smirking by Jon, like his whole part in this competition was incredibly amusing to her. And, Jon knew, to her it probably was quite amusing.

"Right," She finally looked away from him to start shuffling the pages of her own binder. "I have been looking at some ideas for the task we have been set. Have you brought any with you?"

She looked back at him expectantly. Jon would have rolled his eyes if there was a way for him to avert her gaze. Of course he should have expected that coming. They were told yesterday by Tyrion that they have one group task for the next month whereas the rest of the time they would be alternating between individual tasks to get them up to speed with the day-to-day life of the Managing Director.

They had till the end of the week to come up with an idea that would showcase the new direction the firm wanted to take and present it to the board at the end of the coming week. This was supposed to be something they worked on today – Jon was sure of that.

"Apologies, I had presumed we would be coming up with ideas together." Daenerys was rather enjoying that presumption.

"I thought I would prepare a few things in advance of this." She was trying to sound nonchalant, but Jon could not ignore the undertones of smugness that laced every word of hers. Her words were chosen with the utmost care – 'prepare' to show that Jon was so not prepared for this.

"Perhaps we just go through some of mine now and then we'll see where we stand." Jon clenched a fist underneath the desk and nodded his head. "Perfect. Being from a Marketing background, I thought we could change our branding completely – logo, motto, strategic alignment – everything -,"

"That seems like an impossible task to be completed in the next month." Daenerys glanced up from her notes with a momentarily stunned expression. She did not expect to be interrupted at all clearly, but Jon already felt like he was on the bottom of this see-saw and he needed to be back on equal footing.

"It would be a challenge." Daenerys responded, resting her face again after being thrown for a mere second. Obviously it was a challenge she wanted to take on.

"You need a team bigger than two people to do that well." Jon said, feeling comfortable in arguing her idea which made him feel like he was stronger footing already. He leaned forward more as he continued to speak. "The chances of Tyrion approving a complete brand reimaging that we develop on Friday is slim unless you would be that confident in a rushed decision."

She contemplated this for a second. He knew why she was suggesting this, because he wasn't stupid. It was all to do with marketing and this was something he had no expertise in. She would be able to take full credit for this if it went ahead successfully and she would easily snatch the promotion from him. However he didn't think she would take such a risk.

"Okay," She finally said, her eyes narrowing almost unnoticeably as she looked back down at her sheet. "We can prepare our ideas for the future and invite all the retailers we've wanted to be involved with, but haven't been able to work with due to them not liking Cersei's business methods… This could be a brunch or -"

Daenerys was still speaking, but Jon was zoning out as he planted on that good idea – there was just something missing. Lannister Enterprises was a retail distributor with many businesses in UK, but Cersei was very strict on minimizing costs and had many suspected unethical practices in the operations side that some corporations didn't want to be involved with. Daenerys was definitely on to something there.

"A charity function would surely work better."

Daenerys placed her pen down carefully and sat back even straighter in her chair before turning her eyes to Jon. He knew when she looked up at him that this was a sign for him to continue on. Giving a lick of his lips, he continued, and despite the intensity of her eyes, he chose to stare right back into them. It was difficult not to lose sight of his ideas as he got lost in the violet mirage that were those eyes, but he kept on going.

"I think they've been done before by the company -,"

"Yes, I've been to them." She was looking down her nose at him again as he hadn't been one to before and she was clearly always on the invitation list.

"I think a brunch or just inviting them over is too forward. It's better to show people how we're changing rather than telling them. A charity function allows us to choose something relevant to us like the environment and how we plan to change to support the charity's work. If retailers want to know more and are interested in joining us then we can have a more formal talk with them at a later time."

He was surprised Daenerys had let him speak for so long. His eyes hadn't left hers and she hadn't even glanced away until now. Something subtle had changed behind her eyes, but he couldn't say if it worked in his favour or not. She remained still for a moment before leaning forward and picking up her pen once more.

"It would definitely need to be for the environment that way we can join a government scheme. It shows we're more serious." She was busily writing as she spoke. If this was her way of saying 'good idea' then he would take it.

Maybe he grew too comfortable in that moment and his stupid mouth opened up with this.

"I'm starting to see why we were both chosen for this." It was just meant to be a silly something to compliment the two of them and that they were both respectable competitors, it wasn't meant to open a battlefield.

"I'm not." Daenerys replied very quickly, not even looking up from the notes that seemed to be flowing out of her now. Jon let out an awkward and short laugh causing Daenerys finally to look up at him.

"Jon," A sigh escaped her lips, as if it was painful for her to continue on. It clearly wasn't. "I have been waiting for this opportunity since I finished university. I have been trained to take on a management role, whereas you," Her voice delicately paused here and Jon felt himself shrinking for a second. "Haven't. I worry that this is out of your depth and you failing here could screw us both up."

What on earth was Jon supposed to say to that? How was he supposes to react if not with full, pent-up rage? Daenerys was not even done with her undercover attack on his suitability for the role and Jon was close to being done with biting his tongue.

"I have a lot of respect for you making as much progress as you have in the company, but you still have more to make. I have been in a high position since I left university and -,"

"Like your brother." The words left him easily. You wouldn't be able to tell that he was angry when he said it. His eyes simply flickered up from his clenched fists to see her reaction. He knew it was a sore patch and that's why he said it. She was gripping the side of the table now, giving the most controlled answer she could to the still healing wound of her brother.

"My brother was a bad man. I am nothing like him." Jon noticed the use of past tense in her sentence and he wondered if she had done that deliberately. She now stood up from her seat and loomed over him as her words were leaving her more vicious than she had ever sounded to Jon. "Tyrion said he wants to take the company in a different direction and is changing the wheel. I want to break the wheel and I have the means to do it. You might in a few years with more training and preparation."

Jon stood up then as well, not wanting to be talked down to. Her eyes had to move up with him as even though he wasn't that much taller than her, it was still a decent few inches. Her mouth was no longer turned upwards and her eyes were fiery as she waited for him to speak.

"You're trying to make me step down and it's not going to work, Daenerys."

"I just think that would be best -,"

"For you and that's a load of shit." "You think of me as so beneath you due to where I started in the company. If you see me in such a shit light then how do you see everyone else in a lower position than you in the company? You think you're going to make a difference – you're just like everyone else in this company – same shit, different person. I know what change the employees want to see here, because I've been them. A change in a company starts within."

Daenerys didn't have an immediate response, but it seemed that in the time he was talking they had moved closer to each other. Their faces were practically inches from each other and with Jon breathing heavily from his heated speech, it didn't seem like a necessarily comfortable position for Daenerys to be in, but she remained unmoving. Jon felt like he had to say something else to close his argument.

"Something you should think about before you start disregarding me so strongly."

That suddenly sprung Daenerys into action, but it was too late.

"That isn't -,"

"We can pick this up later."

Jon knew that he was interrupting her far more than he should be considering they still had to work together, but he couldn't take this meeting anymore. He turned around and walked down the still terribly long route out the door and didn't hear her try to stop him.


	3. I Found

'And I'll use you as focal point  
So I don't lose sight of what I want'  
-Amber Run

Thank you so much for the reviews so far!

* * *

Watching Jon walk out the door not even fifteen minutes into their meeting was a strange sensation for Daenerys. She wanted to call out and tell him to stop, but after his beating of words right to her gut she wasn't sure she wanted to hear any more than what was said. Instead she slumped down in her chair, placing her elbows on the desk to prop her head up.

That was a disaster – a complete _fucking_ disaster!

She had felt so prepared and superior to Jon before the meeting had taken place due to her experience, the Daario factor and just everything that she represented compared to him. If she hadn't known better she would have said that Jon was just saying all those things as some sort of mind game to make her feel unprepared, just like she made him out to be, but that wasn't his style at all. She knew that after staring into his eyes; pools of truth had stared back at her.

 _No_ , he had said everything with such sincerity and passion that it was clear to her that he was just speaking the facts and her now feeling like she wasn't as prepared for this promotion as she originally thought was just a side effect of what he said, but not his ultimate purpose. He didn't play like she knew how to when it came to this competition and that was information she didn't know what to do with.

All her life she had been taught that all people were vindictive and to get anywhere in her career she would have to play a game and outsmart them. She had never thought she was very good at playing this game, but she was good at not trusting and distancing herself from ever being close to someone. Funny how her brother who had taught her that people were evil turned out to be the worst of them all.

On reflection she realized maybe she had known all this time that Jon was not designed in this way and that's why she was uncomfortable around him and unsure of how to be when he was there. What could be more intimidating than someone who _meant_ what they said?

The door opened and she threw her head up, trying to compose herself at the thought that it might be Jon coming back. She didn't want him to think he had affected her the way he had. However it was Daario looking very amused by the whole situation. Daenerys let out a sigh and stood up to greet him halfway around the table, as she noticed he locked the door behind him so knew it wasn't _strictly_ a business meeting.

"What have you done to poor Jon Snow?"

Ah, of course he had gone to tell on her about how she was impossible to work with. And for a second she had thought he was all good and true. This made her smile, because she had been proved again that nobody was completely innocent and could play very well when needed.

Well, he had given as good as he had got, so he should've thought twice about going and complaining about her.

"What has he said?" Daenerys asked with her cool manner, unwilling to give anything away until she found out what Jon had said.

"Nothing. I just thought your meeting was going to go on most of the morning, not just twenty minutes."

 _Oh_ … No, she didn't understand this Jon Snow.

"Why is he being considered for the position?" She asked, still slowly joining him alongside the middle of the table. Daario was walking towards her, smiling as if he had been expecting this question for quite some time.

"He's a hard-worker and has some good ideas." Daenerys waited for more to come, but nothing did and so she let out a rather loud, bemused laugh.

"I know lots of people who are hard-working with good ideas, but I don't think I would consider _all_ of them for a management position."

"Tyrion sees potential in him and he's always liked an underdog. He gets a lot of support from his team – he's likeable." She scoffed at this. It felt like a personal dig at her that maybe she wasn't likeable. She was sure she didn't have a reputation of being unlikeable.

 _Am I not likeable?_ She tried to console herself with positive words of, 'Yes, Daenerys, you are likeable, after all you like yourself, don't you?' And for the most part she did. Daario wasn't trying to reassure her though, so she had to force the reassurance out of him somehow.

" _Okay_ , so why am I being considered for this?" She asked, a glint in her eye as she leaned against the table and gained his full eye contact.

"Although Jon may possess some good traits," His hands reached over to her shoulders to allow his fingers to trail down her blue blazered chest. "You are the perfect embodiment of what a manager needs."

She didn't think this was true anymore and this was just something Daario had to say if he wanted to keep touching her body with his hands, but Daenerys simply gave a small nod at this.

"And you had nothing to do with this… consideration?"

"Oh, baby, I don't get to consider any of that shit." He moved in closer, his mouth just wanting to do one thing and that wasn't discussing work. She turned her head slightly, offering up her neck to him instead of her mouth as she wasn't done talking – he still graciously accepted.

"So you won't be able to help me over the next month?" He lifted his mouth from her skin slightly to let out a mumbled reply.

"I can help you both, but I won't be able to take preference." He returned to kiss and bite her neck, but she wasn't particularly warming to his touch right now.

She should have been outraged that her Daario factor was no longer applicable to her, but it made things fairer to Jon and to herself. If she got the position it was down to her and her hard work and if Jon got it… well, she couldn't think like that. She figured after their last talk it was clear that being fair was the only thing to do now.

Daario could tell she was unreceptive and lifted his head to see her pensive expression.

"Hey, don't look like that. You know I would help if it was fucking dire consequences, but it's not."

"I'm just wondering what the point of you is now." She said with a smirk that hopefully came across as a joke even though it wasn't the biggest of jokes to her.

"Well, I'm hoping this is big enough of a point for you." He grabbed her hand and softly draped it down to his crotch that was unsurprisingly getting hard at this point.

"I guess it's a satisfactory point." She said seriously before the slightest of laughs escaped her lips.

"And when you get this – and you will get this – we wouldn't have to hide our relationship anymore. We would be on equal footing, it wouldn't be a manager and subordinate relationship."

 _Great_. The man she thought was just her plaything thought that this was a relationship. She had had a year to tell him this wasn't a relationship and she could never see it being one, so that one was on her. However now was definitely not the time. He may not be able to help her, but she was sure he could definitely destroy her chances at the promotion if he wanted to.

"Let's make sure I get it first."

In the silence that followed Daenerys patted him on the shoulder as a signal for him to move for her to go back to where she had been sat. She gathered up her belongings before sighing – despite the scare of Daario's proposal her mind was still wandering back to the problem of another man.

"If you were me how would you handle Jon throughout all this?" It wasn't a question she should have asked based on his resistance to helping her at all, but she thought it was phrased innocently enough.

"Be nice." He shrugged, still clearly disappointed at her lack of sexual desire towards him today. "Jon won't be trying to pull you down or hurt your position to get this in any way, so why don't you just play nicely and work on your tasks together?"

Daario echoing the thoughts Daenerys was having herself was enough to convince her that this was the right course of action.

Continuing on in the same fashion could hurt her development here more than just attempting to get along with him as best as she could. She also knew that after their last conversation she had severely underestimated him before; he came to her with ideas of what they should do and pointed out that her scope of the company was too small, earning her respect as he did so.

In fact he had given her an idea.

"Thank you, Daario." She began to walk around the opposite side of the table towards the exit.

"Baby, we've got at least twenty minutes to screw around a bit." She gave him a laugh at this.

"I thought I already said not to call me baby." She continued walking, not giving him another look. "And I have more important work to deal with than your body right now."

* * *

And she dealt with the more important work. She spent the rest of her morning at her desk researching some valuable information in her mission to have Jon turn over a new page for their relationship. That afternoon they both had more training sessions and so just before the end of the morning, she had to physically find Jon's desk. This was something she hadn't had to do before.

Sure, they were both high up enough in their respective departments that they were required to have meetings with two or three other people present, but she had never had to be at his desk for this. Besides meetings between Logistics and Marketing were few and far between.

She scoured the floor that she worked on, telling herself that yes they had definitely been working on the same floor of the building for the past year at least as she sometimes bumped into him at the water cooler. Embarrassingly enough she saw his unmistakeable head of curly black hair only a mere few rows of desks away from her own. Was she really that absorbed in her job that she hadn't noticed the man that she had always found appealing in some way? Or was this a sign that all this time she had been overlooking Jon Snow? Most probably, but she knew that in some way that would change from this point on.

She tentatively approached his desk, stopping as soon as she could hear him clearly speaking to one of his colleagues about what appeared to be a matter of work. Some other people facing her could see that she was approaching and all seemed to be wearing identical expressions of confusion – maybe they knew her and Jon were competing or they were just as surprised as she was to be stood there. She was still staring at that black hair though as she cleared her throat.

"Jon," Her voice sounded a little unsure as she began. He turned his head halfway to not look at her completely, but to acknowledge that he was listening. "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

It still felt like the people near enough to hear her were staring right at her, but she just focused on Jon. He let out a strained sigh before standing up. He gave instructions, or it appeared that way, to the colleague he had been speaking to before and silently came to stand in front of her. Her eyes slowly met his blank, yet still so intense eyes and she came to the conclusion that yes, he was still angry at her.

"Uhm… we can go this way." She pointed behind her and didn't wait for Jon to argue that he didn't want to go anywhere.

She led him to an empty office just along the corridor. Tyrion had said that some people might be leaving soon as his sister had chosen them, but she wasn't expecting the first person to leave so soon. On the other hand though anyone in the finance team who Cersei had hired for specific reasons were probably always going to be the first to leave.

The light automatically turned on as she entered the room and she noted that this was probably a more suitable size room for a two person meeting than the ostentatious room she had picked earlier. She turned her head ever so slightly just to make sure he was still behind her and there he was just behind her, observing the room.

So she was going to have to speak first.

"This belonged to someone in Finance until yesterday. Apparently Cersei was getting him to make the profits look better to competitors… amongst other things, so they let him go quietly." She was trying to gain Jon's eye contact again, but he was now staring out the window. "Or so people say."

He still wasn't reacting. He didn't give a shit who this room belonged to or what Daenerys had to say unless it was something relevant to him. Why did he have to make this so bloody difficult for her?

"I've realized that we both work at desks and we've never had our own office." She was finding it difficult to get to her main point and she knew that was clear to him in the roundabout way that she was speaking in. "We're at the same level and this is a big opportunity for both of us… It shouldn't be taken lightly and should be a _fair_ process where the best person for the job wins."

Daenerys still thought that was herself, but she also meant what she said – this was a big opportunity for both of them. The speed at which Jon's head turned to face her was faster than Daenerys could have ever expected. She could tell by his eyes that he was surprised by what she said and this made her feel more comfortable already in talking to him. She was doing the right thing.

"Is that an apology?" He asked it slowly, full of hope, as he took a step closer to where she stood right next to the desk by the window. There was still so much distance between them that she couldn't reach out and touch him, but for some reason it made her feel as if they were as close as they were earlier during their heated conversation.

"Did you know that at the last charity function 35% of staff were not invited?" She avoided his question by bringing to the table the research she had done that morning. Jon's face softened and much to the shock of Daenerys it looked like he smiling at that. "I don't think it should be like that… We should be inviting everyone as a message that things are changing here, because change starts within the company."

It seemed like quoting Jon was enough to push him over the edge, now nobody could deny that he was smiling.

"I would like that," Jon began, "But we need to focus on what we wanted to achieve which was to show our new image to the competitors. Some employees, like the ones not based in London or people in the field don't need to come, but maybe we can propose something in the future for just staff to show the change."

"We can work on something." Daenerys gave a nod and those were the words that seemed to spark the change in the way that they were looking at each other; instead of friction in their eyes, there was curiosity between them. In fact the silence filled the room so much so that Daenerys felt that she needed to fill it so that they weren't just staring at each other with little smiles like they were now.

"I appreciate the fact that you didn't say anything about how unsatisfactory our meeting was earlier." Jon coughed, breaking the eye contact they had been holding.

"I think I said just as much as you, so there was no need to tell anyone."

Daenerys took another little step towards him and now she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, but instead she held out her hand halfway.

"I think we can learn a lot from each other if we try to have _satisfactory_ meetings in future."

Jon stared at her hand a little longer as if processing the fact that he would have to touch her and Daenerys tried her best to keep her hand looking strong. As soon as he did bring his hand out though, she became painfully aware of how tiny her hand actually was and especially so in comparison to his. His big hand took hers so that it fit perfectly and shook it. They both glanced up from their hands to the other's face at the same time and that gave the smallest of blushes to her cheeks. She snatched her hand away, suddenly finding this an intrusion upon her personal space and instead just smiled at him.

"I look forward to more satisfactory meetings." Jon replied after he had snatched his own hand and positioned it behind his back.

And she found herself looking forward to seeing him more too.


	4. Your Flesh Against Mine

I want to be your lover  
Wipe your lipstick across my mirror

Your skin across my skin  
Your hands on my hips

-Dillon

Thanks for all the reviews so far guys! Hope you like this chapter ;)

* * *

"Working in collaboration with them, we can change our image to the public and potential customers forever whilst reducing our carbon footprint by… by…"

Daenerys stopped mid-pace across the corridor space they were sectioned to by Tyrion's office whilst they waited to go in for their pitch. She turned towards Jon who was supposed to be staring at her cue cards in case something like this happened. However he was actually staring at Daenerys whilst she was talking, so it took a bit longer for him to find the correct figure for her.

If she hadn't decided to wear that blue dress today or wasn't so engaging as she spoke then Jon felt he would have been more focused on the notes as required. He obviously couldn't give that excuse and so he had to listen to her clearly very frustrated sighing and just hoped she wouldn't begin tapping her shoe as well.

"30 per cent." Jon provided after a bit of fumbling with the cards. He kept his eyes down on the light pink cue cards now, so that he didn't mess up that task again. He could hear Daenerys begin her pacing once more.

"By 30 per cent and…" The shoes stopped. "Fuck… What do I say next?"

"Not fuck, but that we can also provide lower costs to loyal customers if we follow through with this procedure."

Jon looked up as he finished speaking and found Daenerys nodding slowly. She had needed him to prompt five times now in this little rehearsal she had practically demanded they do before they present their idea to Tyrion and the others. He wasn't sure they needed to practice and it seemed to be throwing Daenerys off more. In an attempt to calm her down a bit, he smiled, but this seemed to bring out a defensive nature in her.

"I just freak out beforehand, but it actually _always_ goes perfectly." She was wringing her hands as she said this, still standing on the spot. It was the first time Jon had ever seen her look properly nervous and this made him warm to her more.

After the initial _extremely_ rocky start, it seemed like they were getting along much better than predicted. The past two days they had knuckled down on their plan for the function and it was clear that they worked well as a team, but Jon was getting more and more curious about the impression he had of her before they began and how it seemed to be changing every day.

Jon had always found beautiful women intimidating especially if they had a strong personality to match it and Daenerys definitely had that, but somehow she had always sparked up an equal amount of curiosity and intimidation within him. As time ticked on he was still intimidated by her, but moments like this got him swinging more to the curious side than intimidated. Why was she so nervous? How was it possible for someone like her to be nervous? It was making her more human and, dare he say it, likeable.

"I bet you were the girl at school who was stood reading all her notes whilst waiting for the exam." Jon joked, in an attempt to make her comfortable once more and this time it seemed to work.

"That _might_ have been me." She replied in a jokingly guilty voice before smiling. He returned the smile and at that she seemed to decide to take the seat next to him. Jon was so used to them facing each other rather than sitting side by side that he felt himself take a second to adjust to it. Daenerys seemed to be adjusting as well to attempting to relax and sit still rather than pacing the floor.

Jon didn't think through what he was about to do, but after he did it he knew it was a mistake. His hand hovered over her twitching one for just a few mere seconds before he lightly patted it. He wasn't one for physical intimacy with near strangers, so he couldn't process why he did that to Daenerys; in fact the only thought he could process after he had patted it two times was ' _oh shit'._ She did stop moving, but it felt like it was due to her feeling uncomfortable. _Well_ , Jon thought, _how would you feel if someone you barely knew patted your hand awkwardly?_ _You would probably freeze as well._

In fact if he was Daenerys he would probably report Jon to HR for unprofessional and inappropriate touching in the workplace. He hoped it wouldn't come to that. He made a mental note to never touch Daenerys again.

He retracted his hand and sat on it as if his hand might disobey him and try to pat her again; he watched the way Daenerys' hands almost instantly began moving again and one of her fingers circled the spot where he had just touched her.

"Maybe you should stop freaking out before these things and it might make you calmer." Jon commented in a rather obvious attempt to beat the risk that they might be sat in complete silence for the rest of the wait if he didn't say anything.

"Is that your secret to remaining so calm?" She seemed to relax around him again after the few moments of awkwardness. She shifted her body in the seat and rested her head against her propped up elbow on the back of the chair, so she was now facing him, as if trying to give her full attention to what he was about to say. Jon didn't think it was going to be that interesting.

"Uh… no, I hate public speaking."

Jon realized as soon as the words left him that this was completely the incorrect move. Daenerys may have announced that she wanted to be fair, but did he actually trust her when she said that? And regardless of that, offering up his weaknesses on a plate to her was still not very wise to do. They had future instances of attending meetings and providing their own ideas that weren't part of this task, so now she knew what he would be bad at doing. _Fucking hell, Jon, do you actually want this promotion?_

She licked her lips before responding. Jon felt like he was watching the wheels in her brain store that information for later. What a stupid idiot he was.

"Well, you know what they say you should do to combat that." She looked away for a second, but her signature smirk was firmly on that face of hers and that always made him uneasy.

"I've tried everything. Imagine everyone naked..." Daenerys looked down at that, maybe she found that an unprofessional topic, but her head snapped back up at his next idea. "Or that everyone's a clown."

"What, clowns?" She let out a delicate laugh, shaking her head before continuing on. "I was going to say you just imagine your life is on the line."

"Why is it not surprising that you have the most serious idea imaginable?" Jon joked with a light laugh, but Daenerys simply shrugged.

"It works. You just imagine that if you don't do it well then your biggest fear is waiting outside to end your life. Or is going to swoop down and get you if you get a word wrong." She said it with such seriousness that made Jon wonder what kind of personal experience she was speaking from.

"Okay, I'll give it a go." Jon replied, unconvinced by the idea, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a go.

"What's your biggest fear, Jon?" It didn't matter how sweet she sounded when she asked that or how it felt when she so nonchalantly said his name with softness instead of hatred, that would be one question he wouldn't answer.

"Clowns." He instead said in his most deadpan voice. Daenerys took a second before letting out a most surprised and genuine laugh at that. And that laugh caused Jon to smile as well.

"Guys," They both flicked their heads up at that, the laughing stopping as abruptly as how it started. Daario was popping his head around the corner with an almost confused grin. Maybe he was just as bemused as Jon was by the sound of Daenerys laughing. Daario had probably spent as little time with Daenerys as he had, but they must have both known how unlike her it was to laugh, whereas Daario always seemed to be finding things amusing – that was something Jon found strange.

"We're ready for you." He stayed there, waiting to show them in.

Daenerys stood first and held her hand out to Jon. It took him by surprise at first and he uncertainly held his hand out as well, but after her startled expression and a nod towards his other hand, which was still holding on tightly to her cue cards, he realised. He handed them over, unsure whether he was imagining how slowly Daenerys took it from his hand or not.

"We'll be fine," She smiled and he nodded in agreement with her.

* * *

Jon and Daenerys walked back out of Tyrion's office with stiff smiles on their faces before they let the door shut behind them and then they began to grin at each other. In fact Daenerys let out what could only be described as a squeal.

"He loved it, he loved it!" She said, taking a moment to enjoy the win.

It had gone tremendously well and Tyrion hadn't even said there was anything that needed changing, in fact he basically just told them to get on with it, to make sure they got good wine and that he was looking forward to attending.

They began walking down the corridor again with the lead of Daenerys as, Jon assumed, she wanted to continue discussing the meeting and shouting about it right in front of Tyrion's office.

"There was one part where I thought he was going to say he hated it, but I believe that was just –,"

"His face?" Jon asked, causing Daenerys to let out a little laugh again. If she carried on with all this laughing then Jon was going to start thinking he was a comedian and that would be a very disappointing career for him.

"You were very good up there. Were you using my tip?" They walked at a slow pace and Jon was happy not to return to his desk straight away just to spend a few more seconds discussing nothing much with her.

"I'm sticking with the clowns for now."

"At least you weren't imagining Tyrion naked." He didn't have to look at her to know she was wearing her smirk as she spoke.

"Yeah, I suppose the other two men wouldn't have been so bad."

A silence fell for a moment and Jon wondered what he had said wrong. He discreetly looked at her from the corner of his eye to see that she thoughtfully chewing on her lip. Maybe he should also stop making jokes around Daenerys as well as inappropriately touching her.

"Hey," Her voice took him as being commanding even though it was perhaps meant with casualness and so he stopped walking, giving her time to walk around him and plant herself in front of him with a determined expression. Jon didn't know what to expect next. "We should go out for a celebratory drink tonight."

She didn't even ask it like a question, of course she didn't. His tongue felt like it was compelled to say yes, but he stopped himself. This was bad for many reasons.

Firstly, just a mere three days ago she was being unkind and surely trying to play a game with him. He wanted to believe that she wouldn't try that again, but jumping the gun and going for a drink for her – did he trust her that much?

Secondly, the last proper and more significant reason, was that with those purple eyes prettily staring at him and the addition of alcohol taking over him – did he trust himself with that?

And so there was only one answer he could give.

"Uh… I can't, sorry."

"Oh… okay." Her voice seemed to break a little then as if she was wondering how even though she hadn't given him a choice he was still managing to get out of it. She looked down firmly at her feet.

"I'm seeing my family tonight." He didn't, that was next weekend.

"Well… I'm going to start getting together a guest list; do you want to start looking at potential venues? We can view them next week." She was looking back at him again, ignoring the previous part of the conversation. That was an extraordinary habit of hers; if she didn't like or want to listen to a response she continued on in the fashion she wanted to. She had done that earlier in the week when he was asking if she was trying to apologize.

"Yeah, sure."

"And you have my number; feel free to message me at all about venues, people, and well, anything to do with the function."

He did have her number. She had thrust it at him as soon as they had agreed to work more amicably. It was the easiest he had found it to ever get a number from a girl before – he hadn't even had to ask. Not that he was in common practice of asking girls for their numbers.

"Okay, I will."

"Have a good weekend, Jon Snow."

Those words must have been chosen so carefully and were said so delicately to give Jon maximum impact. Their eyes were locked then as she said his name with more fondness than he could have ever imagined her being able to stomach when it came to saying his name. And then she broke that contact and walked away from him.

He was left feeling like a pretty huge idiot for turning her down.

* * *

All afternoon Jon could barely concentrate. He didn't know why his head kept going back to the one drink he could be having with Daenerys after work, but it did with full forced determination. His mind drifted back to her face and that laugh and the thought of her laughing more.

His reasons for not going were still clearly based on sound logic to Jon, but his gut was saying he should have still gone. Fuck all the logic; he was being pushed by something else now.

And he didn't need to have more than one drink; she had only asked him to go have one drink anyway. One drink couldn't hurt... He surely couldn't make such a ludicrously stupid mistake after one single drink. It wasn't like he would be on vodka, tequila or anything dangerous, he would just have a beer – one pint of beer – and wouldn't make lame attempts to flirt or stare at her anymore than he currently did.

He didn't even like her in that way - that was stupid. He just wanted to get to know her better and have a good partnership for the next few weeks and celebrate their great pitch. Drunk Jon might have different intentions though, but...

Sod it. One drink.

He stayed there until pretty late in the evening, attempting to do work as his mind debated what he should be doing. He knew Daenerys would be there until late as well as she never left before six in the evening.

But when he heard her unmistakable voice wishing a cleaner goodnight earlier than expected – of course she did because she was so fucking polite – he jumped up from his chair and unhooked his thick coat from the coat stand to practically chase after her. There was no time to make a decision now; he just had to go with his gut.

The lift doors had just closed as he got there, but thankfully the next set of lift doors opened as if urging him on to do the wrong thing and meet up with her, like the devil on his shoulder. His heart pounded that he might make it, but when the doors opened back up at the ground floor she wasn't to be seen in the lobby.

He tried going through the barrier, but it didn't work. The guard on duty tutted and indicated to the barrier again, reminding him that he needed his pass to go through.

"Damn, how long have you worked here?" Jon ignored him, having been in many verbal back and forths with the guard before, and instead just got his pass out of his coat pocket to go through.

He continued at his half jogging, half walking pace and when he got outside to the refreshing blast of icy air, Jon had prepared himself for an evening by himself again, as he couldn't see her anywhere, but suddenly there was her blonde hair across the road walking towards a taxi.

He smiled despite himself and walked forward, ready to call her name and run to join her, until the door opened and inside was Daario, pulling her in by the hand.

Jon noted that it wasn't the tentative, awkward patting of hands; it was with such familiarity that made Jon say:

"What the…?"


	5. Bad Liar

_'With my feelings on fire, guess I'm a bad liar' - Selena Gomez_

 _Thank you so much for the overwhelming number of reviews for the last chapter!_

 _To answer a few of the questions: Yes, Ghost will be making an appearance and there may be some jealous Jon in the next chapter!_

 _Hope you enjoy this one!_

* * *

Daenerys began to pull the zip down on her dress. It always took some sort of acrobatic skill for her to reach around to her back and pull it all the way down. The bedroom door opened and she turned her head slightly to direct her voice in that direction, but not turning her back away from the door as she didn't take that view away for them.

"Can you be helpful and pour my wine?"

"Yes, anything for you, princess." Daario sounded fatigued by the idea that Daenerys didn't _immediately_ want to have sex with him.

"I think you mean Queen." She turned around to face him fully now to make sure he left the room to do as she said. She gave him a smirk as he reluctantly reproached and shut the door once more.

She was left inside the room with one of her cats, Rhaegal. He was the ginger one of her cats making him the fluffiest to cuddle and looked like he would be most willing to comfort Daenerys if she was ever at a point of complete turmoil.

"What am I doing?" She whispered to him as she picked him up for a quick pick-me-up.

She wasn't at complete turmoil yet, but her head was most certainly fucked and it felt like it was only going to get worse.

Firstly she didn't know what she was thinking when she had invited Jon to go for a celebratory drink with her. Why did she ask that? Yes, she had decided that Jon had turned out to be a decent guy and she was actually enjoying working with him, but that didn't mean that having a drink with him was a _good_ idea. Daenerys didn't even want Daario here, but when he turned her down and Daario had suggested it had been a while since they had spent a night together she felt like it was better than nothing.

And that feeling that Daario was 'better than nothing' to her was hilarious. She couldn't imagine herself in any past thought thinking that Jon would make better company than Daario, because at the end of the day Daario's purpose was sex and sex was usually a better option than the dark and brooding silence that Jon usually supplied. However, it was very apparent to herself, that her interest in Daario was dwindling fast with the more time she spent working towards her promotion and, ultimately, with Jon.

She told herself it wasn't anything to do with Jon though. All she knew was that their intense conversations and barely touching of skin turned into extreme thoughts in her mind – a place she thought it would never go with Jon Snow. She could describe it as being curious and being curious wasn't good when a promotion was at stake.

And if anything did happen with Jon, and she wasn't saying she wanted anything with him, that would make things even more complicated in her romantic life – they were competing for the same position for fucksake! Turning it into anything else would lead to more games, a possible jeopardy of her position and if anyone found out? She was done.

And it wasn't like Jon saw her as anything more than a snobby bitch who wanted to destroy him in this competition. He had made that abundantly clear when he didn't want to socialise with her outside of work. She didn't know if she had expected him to say yes, but she was certainly disappointed when he didn't. It was a stab to her pride and a bigger bruise to her ego than ever before. She rarely made the first move, because she never normally needed to and now here was Jon Snow telling her no.

Had anyone ever said no to her before? She took a moment to consider that and came to the conclusion that yes, once when she was five years old on a playground she had tried to give a boy a flower and he threw it on the floor. That was definitely the equivalent to no in child speak.

And then there was Daario. Sweet, _stupid_ Daario who thought they had the potential to be in a relationship. _How_? How had that thought even entered his brain and populate into this imaginary relationship that she had never asked to be a part of? With new focus towards her promotion and – purposely ignoring the aspect of Jon - dwindling feelings towards Daario, she knew now was the time to call it quits, but could she?

She had her suspicions that if she ended things now he would find a way to sabotage this opportunity for her somehow. Perhaps she could sensitively do it… She just needed a nice reason for ending things rather than her honest reasons.

The thought of copious amounts of wine was the only thing making her want to join Daario in the living room and so she sighed, finally letting Rhaegal get on with whatever he wanted to do. She finished removing her dress and put on her luxurious dusty pink silk nightgown; it was full length so that she didn't end up giving Daario the wrong idea more than he already had.

"Your wine, Queen." Daario commented with a smirk, signalling with his hand towards her glass filled with white wine. He was sipping on his own one, legs outstretched to rest on her coffee table.

She walked the long way around to join him, passing her floor-to-ceiling window to give a quick glance to the darkened, twinkling sky that overlooked the city of London. She snatched up that wine and took a gulp before slumping down on the sofa next to Daario.

"You and Jon were playing very nicely today." His hand was already itching over to her silk covered legs and Daenerys slapped it away as she wanted to fully concentrate on the delicious wine that was going to blank out her headfuck for a couple of hours.

" _You_ said I should play nicely."

"Yes, but you were _very_ nice. I think I even saw you laughing?" That brought a smirk to Daenerys. He had made her laugh and the icy Jon making her laugh was still a thought that surprised her. She didn't give a response to Daario's remark and so he continued on.

"Today was a very good day for you to show that you deserve this – you were miles better than Jon in that pitch."

Liar, liar.

She had thought Jon was better than her if anything. She came off as practiced and rehearsed every time she spoke, but Jon spoke like the ideas had just come to him and most importantly with heart.

"I thought he did very well." She simply mused, taking another sip from her glass.

Daario now shifted along the sofa to get closer to her and his hand crept back on to her lap. As she didn't see any other reason for having him stay over if she wasn't going to actually have sex with him, she let him keep his hand there.

"Events are what you're good at with your marketing background, so it will be very clear to Tyrion that you've done most of the work."

He shuffled closer to her and she knew at that point he wasn't putting much thought into what he was saying to her anymore.

"He's going to be doing as much work as me on this. I want to win fairly and I think me taking all the credit for our group project is _not_ very fair." She took a refreshing gulp of wine before setting it on the table as she didn't want to spill any in Daario's race for her skin.

His hands brushed away her hair so he could kiss a path from her nape to her collarbone with a non-existent delicacy. Daario got excited very quickly and usually Daenerys went in for Daario with the same quick purpose, but that method didn't help her now when she was failing to feel interested. He brought her face around to face him and whispered before giving her a passionate kiss without the passion it usually invoked,

"This neck deserves a beautiful necklace around it."

She stopped wearing necklaces a long time ago. Viserys had presented her with one as a celebration of something… She couldn't remember the details, but she remembered the day she lost faith in him and ripped it from her neck to throw in the big black bins that were outside her block of flats. She hoped a homeless person found it and made money to start a new life for them – it would be the greatest thing Viserys had ever done.

"I'll get you one when you are promoted."

She felt lucky that Daario went immediately back to kissing her and she returned it in the same manner as he gave it, as she didn't want to give him an opportunity to pull away and expect her to say anything to that promise.

It wasn't his fault after all that the thought of that present repulsed her more than she would ever be able to say. Maybe if she kissed him hard enough then he would forget all about getting her a necklace.

She was even luckier that her phone distantly buzzed from the other side of the coffee table to let her know a text had come through. She lightly pulled away from his kiss, falling backwards on the sofa in her attempt to get away, as he was still trying to smother her with kisses.

"It might be important," Daenerys said as way of explanation before sliding out from underneath him. She heard him sigh as she stretched over the table to grab her phone.

"What text could be that important on a Friday night?"

It would be a huge surprise to Daario to know that she did friends, granted not many, and her life wasn't solely about work, her cats and having sex with him. She figured it would be Missandei texting to ask her to have brunch over the weekend or sending a photo of her cocktail to tempt her to go out with her for one, but Daenerys had her wine.

However it wasn't Missandei, it was Jon.

Daario probably looked over her shoulder and saw who had texted her, for he let out another sigh.

"Should I be getting jealous of this guy?" He mumbled as if he didn't want Daenerys to hear how desperate he was sounding.

"Jealous that he clearly works harder than you do?" Daenerys retorted, although she wasn't sure if he was messaging about work or something else. The idea that Jon could be messaging about something non-work related excited her and she had no idea how that could be such an exciting prospect.

She knelt on the floor, making sure the phone was now out of Daario's sight to have a bit of much needed privacy with her phone. She slid her thumb over the text to view it in its' entirety.

It was the most straight-to-business text she had perhaps ever read, even blunter than some of the ones she had sent to fellow members of her marketing team, and yet it was so completely Jon that she found herself smiling at it.

 **JON: I've found a venue for us to look at Monday 11am. Would be good for us to look at what else we need to do then too.**

For such a straightforward message, it did cause Daenerys a lot of conflict when deciding to reply. Should she even be responding so soon after he sent it? She started her message with, 'Great, I look forward to seeing it', but then she thought maybe 'great' should be changed to fantastic or cool or awesome. And then she thought maybe she should make a little joke saying 'Stop working whilst you're with your family' or maybe even a reference to the clown talk they had earlier…

After a minute or two had passed of indecision, it settled on Daenerys that she had only behaved like this when she was a teenager. This was a strictly business conversation, why was she behaving like she was trying to get Jon to like her. Next she would be writing his name in little hearts. That was a terrifying thought. No, no, no... What the fuck was she doing? Maybe she had too much wine or not enough wine.

She quickly scribed the message back of, ' _Great, look forward to seeing it! Now don't be so boring around your family and stop working_ ' before practically throwing her phone back on to the coffee table. That was enough of the weird lapse of joyful craziness of a single text less than 140 characters – had Twitter ever managed to get her to overthink about nonsense like that before? No, so why was Jon getting a special privilege at that?

She was still thinking about it though. Maybe he wasn't seeing his family at all and was just trying to get out of a drink with her, so her message would look stupid, commenting about his family. And she really shouldn't have responded so quickly.

Ugh, this needed to stop. Immediately.

And with that she threw herself upon Daario grappling for an escape from the inside of her head. Her lips pressed against his with such force that it was like when she first started meeting up with him. Her hands pulled Daario from the sofa to fall on top of her on the fluffy carpet and Daario responded fantastically, as he always did, using one of his elbows to prop himself up so he didn't crush her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her confusion from earlier was now being covered up with sexual desire.

"I think your pussy wants me."

And then the moment was gone.

Daenerys let out an irritated groan at that and pulled her mouth roughly away from his. He let out a laugh as he cocked his head to the side; she followed his gaze to see Viserion purring underneath the table near Daario.

"Did that deserve an announcement?" She asked, more annoyed at herself than him as now the moment was gone, her head was now available and open to unwanted thoughts once more. Daario was still laughing lightly at his own joke and this drove Daenerys to push him off her and snatch her wine glass off the table; unfortunately there was only a sip left at the bottom of her glass.

"You didn't give me nearly enough wine." Her hair was all over the place as she stalked off to the kitchen to refill the glass.

"Oh, baby, come on, I was just messing around." The sound behind her was clearly Daario following her to the kitchen and that was just what she didn't want.

She was acting bizarre, she knew that, and she didn't think she could hide the fact that she didn't want the same things as Daario anymore. After opening the fridge door and refilling her glass, she ignored Daario as she started taking gulps of her wine, but it was difficult to ignore a confused looking man filling up her doorway.

"That was a turn off." She took a break from gulping at her wine to say that.

"Well, baby, you've been so difficult to please recently. What's going to turn you on?" There was some desperation in his voice as he said that. She actually found him being so desperate a nice thing and that was so wrong of her.

"Winning," She allowed herself to give him a smirk as she said that. That probably would turn her on immensely, but she didn't know if it would with him anymore. Maybe as soon as this was all over everything would go back to normal.

Oh, but Daario had already announced that he wanted a relationship, so going back to normal was impossible.

"So you're saying I have to wait until then?" He said this as light-heartedly as possible, but she knew the thought of no sex for three weeks was driving him crazy. He would just have to find it somewhere else.

"Tonight I don't want sex. I've got too much on my mind and that's not going to work. We don't really do much apart from sex," She added this in as an almost subliminal message to show him that they didn't really have anything close to a relationship. "So I think you should go home."

"We can have more than that though-,"

"But tonight I want to be alone to focus on this promotion. Jon is working right now and I can't get behind with a distraction as big as you." She had quickly cut him off before he could speak more nonsense and she knew the sound logic of the fact that she needed to work would convince him that he shouldn't be there yet wouldn't necessarily upset him too much.

She was relieved to see that he gave a small, reluctant nod as she spoke. It had worked. Now she just needed a similarly nice reason for ending it for good to make herself feel better.

"Okay, do I not even get a cuddle?"

She gave him a nod and a small smile – that was absolutely fine with her. She approached him in the doorway of the kitchen and rested her head against his chest for a moment before pulling away. He was smiling down at her then and pressed his lips against her forehead.

"I'm sorry for having you come around." She said, feeling as if she owed some sort of apology. This was definitely not the night he had planned. She walked him to the door and just before he was walking off, he turned back around to face her.

"Don't worry, I'll call you later."

Maybe she could turn her phone off later then. What would they be discussing later on?

She waved him off as more a sign that he needed to continue walking away now. The door got shut firmly as soon as he left and she sighed against it for a while before remembering that she had wine left.

Not bothering with her glass anymore, she grabbed the bottle and walked back in the direction of her bedroom. First she stopped to check her phone to see if she had received a text back – no.

She was really starting to hate Jon fucking Snow.


	6. Just A Game

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE GLORIOUS REVIEWS! I am loving reading them and you keep me going SERIOUSLY

* * *

Jon had woken up in a shit mood.

After a weekend to escape the intensities and strangeness of his past week, he was unsurprisingly not ready to return to it. It wasn't even that he had a fantastic weekend, in fact it was quite similar to every weekend when he stayed in his tiny rented cottage near London. He watched Sam play on his Playstation and sometimes joined in, he went on long walks with Ghost, his husky, and those took up a huge portion of his weekend, he would visit the local weekend produce markets to purchase fresh food to cook for himself and he would end his weekend curled up in bed with a good book and Ghost by his side.

That weekend was much better than any moment from his upcoming week. He had dreaded seeing Daenerys since he stepped into the building, because then it would bring up his indecisiveness over what to do with what he saw – those touching hands.

He had thought about the hands more than he would have liked to. He knew deep down that he would sound paranoid if he ever spoke out to anyone about it and heck, he could even admit to himself he was being paranoid.

He knew that if he described what he saw, the simple act of someone pulling someone else into a taxi, the offering of a helping hand that it would sound like nothing, but they hadn't _seen_ it. The look in Daario's eyes suggested it was so much more than just a helping hand. Or maybe what he was providing her was exactly that – a helping hand to win this competition and get the promotion.

He had even sent a text to Daenerys on Friday evening as some sort of ' _I know you won't respond, because you're with Daario'_ type thing, but she had responded right away. The fact that he was even sending her a text with some sort of motive behind it, her replying instantly and the knowledge that he could never take this information to Tyrion, he decided he needed to block this all out of his head.

At the end of the day what did it matter to Jon what, or whom, she did? If anything was happening with Daario, then she was just using games and tactics to win this like he had thought she was doing all along. She would have lied when she said she wanted to be fair and what did it matter? Jon would still continue to be the same way with his head down and doing a good job then at the end of it all they would see what paid off more: being fair or playing games.

Jon didn't give a shit about Daario and Daenerys, it was just the fact that it wasn't fair. And yet, despite himself, he was able to block everything else out relating to it, but his mind kept drifting back to the fact that she had asked him for a drink that night. She wasn't supposed to be meeting up with Daario that night, _they_ were supposed to be having a drink.

What would have happened if he had said yes?

It was only a tiny echo of a question in his head, but he knew as soon as he saw her it would be bouncing off the sides of his brain as if he was using a megaphone to voice the question.

He could breathe freely as he stood in the lift for she wasn't there. And she wasn't at her desk as he walked past it to approach Tyrion's office to get his briefing on what he was required to work on for his individual tasks this week and what his training schedule looked like.

Unfortunately his eyes glanced to Daario's office and there she was. The windows were so large for his office that it was like Daenerys was being displayed on a cinema screen for the rest of the office.

They were stood an appropriate distance apart, but he was looking at her with those eyes and that smile again. Her back was facing Jon, so he couldn't comment on anything, but the laugh that then escaped Daario made it clear that whatever the touching hands image meant, they were familiar. More familiar than you would ever expect the Head of Strategic Operations and a girl from Marketing to be.

He was now positioned right outside the office, not even staring in, as he zoned out completely, his mind wandering to all the thoughts he had stored in there over the weekend as if he was now able to begin thinking about them right then and there.

He could only make an estimate of how much time had passed before the door to the office flung open and that would be perhaps a full minute.

"Oh, Jon," She began smiling as she saw him, but seemed flustered, or was he just imagining that to fuel his paranoia? "Good morning."

"Morning, Daenerys." His eyes flickered back to the office and that action caused Daario to turn back to look at his desk. Had he really been just looking at Daenerys after she left the room? Such obvious behaviour! Or, again, was this just Jon making something out of nothing?

"How was your weekend?" She asked, maybe oblivious to Jon's staring at the office.

"Fine," He was over his weekend now that the problem was staring him right in the face. "What was that about?"

The smile on her face twitched a bit as if she was either completely surprised that Jon would ask such a thing or she had something to hide.

"What?" Her eyebrows closed in together in deeper confusion, before following Jon's gaze to Daario through the window. "Oh, I was just picking up the individual brief for the week."

"We're supposed to be getting it from Tyrion." She was clearly not thinking through her lies very well and instead just coming up with illogical excuses, but Jon was here to see the truth!

"Yes, but Tyrion isn't here until the afternoon." Daenerys now was looking pained to be under this line of questioning. "You should be getting yours from Daario as well if you want to be prepared."

It shouldn't have mattered to Jon whether or not Daario had something happening with Daenerys, but it did. He didn't want to face him right now, because he couldn't act like everything was okay; it was hard enough to pretend with Daenerys that he wasn't thinking about the fact that she had held Daario's hand and the other possibilities that could have led to – kissing, caressing and sex.

No, it shouldn't have mattered, but it did.

"I'll get it later," He replied, fully aware that he was returning to his gruff way of speaking to her.

He turned away from Daenerys, ready to walk in the other direction to his own desk, but her hand lightly pulled him back by the arm. She didn't look disturbed or angry by the way he was acting and instead was smiling up at him.

"So… shall I come get you later when it's time to go to the venue?"

Hmm… he had forgotten of the small, tiny problem of spending time alone with her to look at the potential venue. That wouldn't be a tense time under these circumstances at all.

"Of course," He said, attempting to return her smile, but most likely doing a terrible job at it.

He walked away, already practically filled with dread for the day ahead.

* * *

She didn't turn up until 10:35 and Jon had made a small attempt to look for her, as in he looked at her desk and hadn't seen her there, so for a few blissful minutes he thought he might just have to call up the venue and say they couldn't make it. 10:35 rolls up and there she is looking as corporate as ever with a tablet in hand and what looked like a modern day version of a briefcase.

"Well, shall we set off?" She said as way of greeting, giving a polite smile to the colleagues around Jon. They were still confused by her popping by seeing as until last week she never set foot around this part of the office.

Jon didn't know how Daenerys expected to get to the venue in time. The hotel they were looking at was at least four stops by tube and that seemed impossible to Jon, but he nodded nevertheless and grabbed his thick coat that was far too much of a winter coat for the beginning of September.

They walked in silence to the lift as Jon pulled out his phone, pretending to read something extremely important and he noticed that Daenerys started to look at her tablet now as well. He put it away in his pocket too soon as he was now faced with the prospect of enduring the awkward lift ride without entertainment.

"How was the night with your family?" Jon was taken aback by her sudden attention to him instead of her tablet that it took him several moments to remember that lie he had told. She noticed the lack of response and raised her head quizzically at him.

"Uh... yeah, it was fine, I mean, good." She gave him a bemused sort of smile and Jon turned back to look straight ahead of him, reminding himself to never lie again.

When they started walking out the building, Jon automatically began walking in the direction of the nearest tube station, but Daenerys wasn't following.

"Jon?" She called, causing him to turn to see her approaching the taxi stand that was located just outside their office.

"I thought we would be getting the tube." Daenerys waved a hand dismissively.

"Oh, we're running late, we'll never make it in time." As Jon still didn't move, she motioned for him to come over. "Come on."

Reluctantly Jon followed her. He hated riding in any sort of car, he had since... Well, it had been a long time since he had hated it, but at least now it only brought on a mild case of anxiety and unwanted flashbacks.

He got in the taxi after Daenerys and she had clearly already given the address as they started driving off almost immediately. He hurriedly buckled himself in before they started making any real movements and he had to focus on something inside the taxi instead of being forced to look out the window. Unfortunately for him his eyes immediately latched on to the practically glowing hair of Daenerys.

It was calming for a moment to stare at her hair as she stared out the window, but then he noticed her seatbelt wasn't done up. Before considering what he was doing, he reached over and tugged on it, bringing it over her shoulder.

"Oh," She turned, shocking him with how close their faces were in this strange positioning. After a moment of his hand resting on her shoulder with their eyes locked, she broke it by pulling on her seatbelt. "Thank you."

He decided to stare at his hands for the rest of their journey.

* * *

"And as you can see the view is absolutely spectacular from this point."

The viewing was going into more detail than Jon had ever imagined; he now knew how much a champagne reception would cost, that all food could be turned into a miniature version for canapes and that event spaces had several different lighting options and what you chose for your event was a critical decision.

All Jon had really been able to tell was that it was an incredibly nice venue for an event and if he had turned up here he would be impressed by it. It was the top floor of one of the nicer hotels in London; they would have access to the bar, a room of suitable sizing for them to dine in and this view that she was referring to.

Jon was suddenly very glad for having Daenerys there, because she seemed to know the exact things to ask and he could tell her notes regarding it were going to be meticulous, whereas Jon was writing things down like ' _Drinks? Little food?_ ' and not saying anything particularly stimulating. The lady showing them around though still looked to Jon for his point of view on things and he had no idea why – maybe it was because it was him who had arranged this.

"Yes," It was all Jon could say as he looked outside at the spectacular view she was talking about.

"Apart from that construction work over there." Daenerys commented, pointing out across the skyline to where some bulky construction took over London's buildings. She went back to making a note of it and Jon gave a little smile as the events co-ordinator, Laura, clearly didn't know what to say about that comment.

"Okay, I think we should hold the reception drinks in the foyer, spilling out into here for the _view_ ," There was a special stress in her voice as she said that word, so it was clear that was no accident. "And we can display what we want on the screens here I'm assuming?"

"Yes, you can send us whatever you want displaying on here." Daenerys was making the most of the room by walking around and pointing out the things they would be using on the night. She was clearly very comfortable in this setting and Jon felt that he should be learning from her, but it was mainly just going over his head.

"That should work then." She looked over expectantly at Jon for approval as well and so he just gave a brief nod.

"Yes, Jon, what do you think of that? Is there anything else you would like to see?" Laura was once more giving her full attention to Jon when Daenerys was walking and speaking like she was in charge of this operation. Jon was just confused by this, but it clearly grated on Daenerys' nerves.

"Laura," She began, clearly meaning her voice to come off as intimidating as it did. "Why don't you get us those brochures you promised with the pricing on?"

"Oh, yes," Laura looked between Jon and Daenerys, realizing she was doing something wrong here and now wanting to be as helpful as possible. "I'll be back in just a minute then."

Daenerys waited until Laura had walked around the corner of the bar before sighing and walking right up to the glass to look down over London. He was positioned near the window as well, but staring at her rather than the view.

These moments were very difficult to figure out with her. Jon wasn't one for talking without necessity, but when they would be in silence he felt like something had to be said. He found her uneasy to be around when they were talking, but in silence it was worse because then he had to wonder what she was thinking about. He weirdly found himself wanting to know what was going on in her head, because ultimately that was so much better than not knowing.

"Do you think she gets commission for getting a man to sign the contract rather than a woman? Or do we think she likes you?" She turned from the window to look at him then, that small smirk quirking upwards at the very last second.

He didn't know why Daenerys would make a comment like that, but the unexpectedness of it all made him laugh. She let out a rather dramatic gasp and pointed at him.

"Oh my God, did you just laugh?" Although there was only a few feet of distance between them at the glass, she began walking by the glass to get even closer to him – forcing him to look deep into those purple eyes. "Jon Snow can laugh?"

He let out another laugh and this caused a beautiful reaction of her also laughing. Those eyes practically sparkled when she laughed. Despite all his concerns regarding her, that moment allowed him to just think about her face and it was the best part of his day.

"I laugh," He said, smiling with ease at her now.

She took another step, apparently testing the water with how close she could stand in front of him. She was standing as close as they were when they had their first argument and now there was a whole other type of tension between them.

"Well, if I hadn't seen that just now, I would have called that a myth." As he was getting so lost in her eyes, he couldn't avoid noticing how her eyes flitted between his eyes and, what appeared to be, his lips. This distracted him from anything she was saying.

"Not a myth," Maybe repeating her would be sufficient for this moment.

"I feel honoured to make you laugh." She was leaning forwards, eyes still flitting as before. "Especially when you appear to be in a particularly bad mood today."

Her lips were in a perfect smile and her face was getting nearer to his. He wanted to be lost in that moment like before, but his mind wouldn't let him. He wondered what would have happened if he had let her continue moving forwards. It was wrong to let her though.

Her telling him he had been in a bad mood had brought him back to reality. He remembered why he had been in a bad mood and it was ultimately all because of her. Her eyes were closing and his voice broke through what could have an unexpectedly perfect moment.

"What's going on between you and Daario?"

Everything happened slowly after that. Her eyes opened and stayed opened, comprehending what he was asking. He could see from her eyes that she was deciding whether to laugh it off or take it seriously, but his expression was staring back at him in the reflection of her eyes and he knew she would take that expression seriously.

She blinked, looking almost tearful, which was shocking enough, and paired with the fact that her voice crackled inconsistently as she spoke, he was blown over by this new image of Daenerys that stood before him.

"How long have you known?"

That question said it all. His paranoia was correct and she was admitting it. He finally looked away from her eyes as looking at them made him wish that he never had an inkling of knowledge about them.

"Okay, I have a selection of…" Laura's voice came in from the other side of the room, sounding more confused as she went on. Daenerys quickly turned to look back out of the window, leaving Jon with the task of dealing with this. "A selection of our pricing lists."

The girl tentatively approached Jon and he received them from her.

"Thank you, I think that's everything for now. We'll be in touch later today."

Laura looked puzzled, like she had more that needed to be said, but Jon didn't give her the time to say it. He reached out to shake her hand and then started walking to the lift.

"Thank you." He heard Daenerys say behind him, but he didn't look back to see how close she was behind him.

"Jon," The soft voice said behind him followed by the urgent sound of her heels right behind him. The sound grew more urgent as he reached the lift and pressed the button to call it.

He could see her out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't want to focus on her right now. He didn't know what he wanted to do. She stopped by him, but so did an employee from the hotel who looked like they wanted to use the lift as well, and so she remained silent.

The lift came and they all got in. Jon pressed for the lobby, whereas the employee pressed for just a few floors below them. He didn't particularly want to spend time alone with Daenerys right now, especially in a lift where any conversation they had would be more intense.

The tension between them felt so palpable that Jon thought that the employee in the lift must have felt it too. He didn't dare look at Daenerys throughout all this, but the sound of her heavy breathing was unmistakable.

Eventually the lift arrived at the floor for the employee and they got out quickly. Daenerys marched forward to the control panel as soon as the doors shut again. What could she need to be doing there?

"What are you doing?" Jon asked, trying to look around her to see exactly what she had pressed, but she turned around at the same time to block his view. "Did you press emergency stop?"

It was a very rhetorical question as it became apparent by the jolting stop that she had indeed pressed this button. Jon wanted to get out of the lift as quickly as possible and Daenerys seemed to want to stay in there as long as possible.

"How long have you known?" She didn't look as upset or surprised by the situation this time she asked it. Instead she was forceful in the fact that she needed to know.

He tried to get around her to get the lift moving again, but Daenerys pushed in front of him, almost challenging him to try.

"How long has this being going on?" Jon countered, unsure why it was even necessary for him to know, but wanting to know all the same.

Daenerys looked away, clearly not wanting to give an answer, but the space was so small between them that he could see her expression as she answered.

"A while... A year or so."

That was why he wanted to know; he had wanted to know that it wasn't serious and to know that he wasn't imagining before that there might be… something between them.

A year though. That was a serious amount of time. They had a relationship and her pressing herself near him was just all a game. Her and Daario probably laughed over the fact that she had invited him for a drink on Friday. Thank fuck he had declined that offer. She would never find out that he had practically chased her out of the building to take her up on the invite.

"I saw you getting in the same taxi as him on Friday." Daenerys let out a small laugh as if she had just realized that he couldn't have seen anything too incriminating.

"It's nothing." She looked back up at him, signature smirk planted on her face as she tried to play it off.

"I didn't know if it was anything but your answer already confirmed it." At the reminder that she had sealed her own fate, Daenerys grew quiet.

Jon didn't want to even continue on in this conversation – he realized now he knew it was serious that he didn't need to hear anymore and that reason was clear to him. All this time he had been paranoid as to what was going on and that's because he was hoping he was wrong. He was hoping there was still some chance something could eventually happen between him and her.

Now it was off the table.

"Have you told anyone yet?" He couldn't ignore the slight desperation in her voice even though she was trying to be her straight-talking self.

"No..." Even with this declaration he didn't know if there was any point in telling anyone. "You know it would be bad though. It looks -,"

"I'm sleeping with management. Of course I know how this looks. But it's not like that."

It wasn't like that because it was serious for her. It was just him that she was trying to make a fool of. He was the pawn in her game. Asking him for drinks, her coming close to him, those purple eyes…

It got him mad.

"Yeah, it might be serious, but the way you were acting with me…" He didn't want to directly refer to the way he felt they had been getting closer, because maybe it was all in his head. "All this shit – it's not a game? What was going on just now and all this -,"

"No!" The word left her so fast that his eyes were drawn back to hers, suddenly caring about what was coming next. "Sure when we first started I thought it would be beneficial to my career, but it's just sex. It is _nothing_."

Jon couldn't process anything for a moment, because the word 'sex' had left her beautiful lips, but when he could process what was going on he realized she didn't acknowledge what Jon said about her and Jon, so there he was dangling in a bubble of hope once more; she still thought her relationship with Daario was nothing.

However this brought up new problems. She was now playing a game with Daario? Couldn't that still mean she was doing the exact same thing with him?

"And before you say anything, he told me himself he can't help me get the promotion."

Every single argument or conversation they had came down to the fucking promotion. They could never escape that. And even if it was a conversation, it would normally turn into an argument, because she would say stupid shit like that.

"Can't help you get it? _Really_? So when Tyrion asks for his opinion he's going to give a completely fair answer?"

Jon was using his arms more to talk – a sign he was getting riled up – and as they were stood so close in the lift, it was difficult to not touch her as he was using his hands to motion. Daenerys took a while to respond, opening her mouth once before closing it again.

"He wouldn't ask for his opinion on the final decision!" She was wagging her finger as her voice grew louder, as if she was finding the whole idea of that ridiculous.

"He would, because that's what leaders do. They can't do things without knowing how their advisors feel." Jon spoke softer this time, not feeling the need to match her voice when he felt he was speaking more sense than she was.

"Look he said he wouldn't help me and I have to trust that." She was dismissive in her tone and Jon was about to say something back when she sighed and met his eyes with that same teary eyed expression as before. "I don't want to do anything with him anymore because... _because_ things are different now. He wouldn't help me, but I'm sure he would sabotage me."

Because things are different now? Was that about the promotion or wanting something more or, dare he even think it, maybe about the possibility of them? That couldn't be it.

Jon had to get that thought out of his head in order to not scream out ' _just leave him!_ ' and give a logical solution to her dilemma.

"That's a risk to take then if you want to be fair like you claimed." She sighed again, turning away from him to begin a strange pacing of the small floor that was available to her.

"Don't you see I'm damned if I do and screwed if I don't? I keep things as they are then I'm being hard on him, because when... _If_ I win he wants a relationship so I'd have to end it anyway and then it's hard on you and I risk getting caught or you just telling Tyrion yourself. If I end it then I'm screwing myself over."

She was using her hands now to express how shit her dilemma was. He didn't feel any anger towards her anymore. Bad people who intentionally used others didn't sound like that.

He didn't know what advice to give her without being biased, so he simply said;

"I won't tell Tyrion."

She stopped pacing then and looked up at him once more. Something shifted in that moment between them.

Maybe him displaying that much trust to Daenerys would discourage her from messing around with him.

Of course this also meant that if she didn't want to mess him around more then he wouldn't get to stare at those purple eyes with such intensity anymore or he wouldn't get that close to her lips again.

He had to do the right thing though.

"You won't?"

He nodded.

"You've got a hard enough decision to make without me doing anything."

"Jon, that's too..." She shook her head, biting her lip before finishing her train of thought. "I probably wouldn't do the same if things were reversed."

"I'd like to think you would." He didn't want to believe that she was telling the truth with saying that. She couldn't be that ruthless when it came down to it, could she? "Any way you look at it though you're using him - sex, promotion - I think the best decision is the less selfish one."

Okay, so that piece of advice was a bit more biased, but he did feel slightly bad that Daario was obliviously wanting a relationship and she was claiming she didn't see it as anything more than a no strings attached arrangement.

Selfishly though – making his advice more ironic – it was obviously better for him for both prospects with his job and Daenerys if she chose to end things.

"That's usually the harder one." She let out an awkward laugh after saying that.

He leaned across her and pressed the emergency stop button again. The lift jolted into action and they started speeding down to the ground floor.

"Good management practice." He smiled at her and she smiled back.

That was dangerous. He immediately stopped smiling. He couldn't be around her when she was still with Daario.

"I'm going to take the tube, you can take a taxi." He said as soon as the lift doors opened.

"Okay." Her voice reminded him of when he had turned her down for drinks. The surprise and the small tinge of hurt were present here too.

He walked out the lift doors, not wanting to say bye, because saying bye would make him want to stay with her. He thought he had created enough distance between them until he heard a familiar urgent stepping behind him on the streets.

"Jon!" He turned and she stopped, leaving quite a bit of distance between them. "Even if you think I'm playing a game with him, I don't want you to think I am with you."

She didn't wait to hear if he had anything to say back, and truthfully he didn't know what he would say to that, she just nodded her head and turned in the opposite direction.

He watched after her for a moment and saw her turn her head back around to glance at him once more before he headed in the other direction towards the tube station.

He couldn't believe that after that kind of conversation he was smiling, but there he was smiling.


	7. Nosebleed

He looks at me like I'm lovely and I'm petrified  
My insides are twisted and my head is fucked  
And I have far too much to say  
Does he feel the same?

-Nosebleed, Phoebe Green

This song is just everything to me for this chapter, so have a listen! Keep the reviews coming, because I love them and let me know what you think of this chapter and what's coming next ;)

* * *

Daenerys remembered the day that she and Daario had begun, or rather the day the idea was planted in her head.

She had heard the door shut in the living room as she got out of the shower. There was no word of greeting and so she thought there was no particular motive behind his visit today. The steam from her shower continued to blossom over the mirror and she was thankful for that; she didn't want to see the nervousness that sat behind her eyes.

"Oh, there you are," He greeted, as she left her room with a towel firmly wrapped around her. He was sat on the sofa with his favourite cat, Viserion, on his lap. The fact that Viserion was his favourite was not a coincidence. She knew she was feeding his egocentric nature by naming one of her cats after him, but if it made him happier then she had to do it.

"What are you wearing tomorrow night?"

Daenerys had been with the company for three years and had attended many of the events they held, as Marketing always got to go, but this was the first one where she would matter. As she was in Marketing you were automatically corporate and important, but when other members of her team didn't insist that she continue to work at the event and do the menial tasks, it was a sign that she was seen as an important member of the team.

This was why Viserys was probably asking about the dress. It was important that she look the part.

"I'll just go get it." She went and pulled out the pale blue, floor length chiffon dress that she had chosen so carefully with Missandei the weekend before.

When she returned, holding it up in front of her, Viserys had let Viserion go and was approaching her slowly.

"Hmm… put it on." He didn't seem as impressed by the dress as she was. She turned to go and try it on in her room when his voice rang out. "You don't have to leave the room."

She walked faster, pretending she hadn't heard him, but pretending was futile – he knew she had heard him, but he was letting it pass today.

Hurriedly she put the dress on, not treating it with the care it deserved. When she walked back out of her room, he was stood in the exact same spot waiting for her.

He walked around her in a perfect circle, criticizing anything he didn't like and appreciating the things he did like with his eyes alone.

"That'll do. I know someone who will be watching you closely tomorrow night."

"Who would that be?"

"Daario. I've noticed him looking at you."

She had noticed him looking as well, but it wasn't something she thought very much about.

"He's the new head of Strategic Operations, isn't he?"

"Yes, you should talk to him. If you want to make it in this company then you have to make friends with the influential." He had a point to make and when he had one to make, he spoke incredibly slowly making sure she got every word.

"Are you suggesting I just make friends with him?"

"Have a conversation and keep him entertained." He fixed one of her straps on the dress as he used his words in such a way to lull her into a false sense of normality.

"Well, I might not find him entertaining." Daenerys scoffed.

"Then you just pretend you do, you stupid -," He snapped, his mask had fallen like it so often did. She flinched, as she always did, but she was much better at hiding it now. "If you want us to one day be at the top of this company, ruling them all, then this is something you have to do. You're not going to get there with your _mediocre_ work."

The seed was planted like a weed that would refuse to stop growing even though she didn't want any of it.

* * *

And now she sat in a Starbucks waiting to use that weed repellent once and for all.

As being early was such a critical thing to Daenerys, she was there five minutes before their meeting time. Keeping an eye on the door, she stirred her sugar slowly. In no time at all he would be walking through that door and she had to make sure her words came out exactly as she wanted them to – she couldn't afford to mess this up.

She had, of course, known this was something she would have to do, but Jon's words to her yesterday had sparked the urgency in her doing this now.

He walked through the door, practically grinning at her. He crossed the room to her and started leaning over to her before she leaned back in her own seat.

"Before you do anything, Joanne from Payroll is sitting right over there." She had picked a location opposite work to ensure that at least one person from the company would be there.

"How the hell do you know who she is?" He slumped in the seat opposite of her instead of sitting any closer.

"I'm memorising the faces, names and job titles of all employees. It's something I should know."

"Fuck, you have been a busy bunny, haven't you?" He leaned forward and picked up his black coffee, giving Daenerys an appreciative smile that she knew what he would like. It wasn't bloody hard to know that though. "Speaking of, shouldn't you be spending your lunch in the office as you normally do? Where have you been?"

"Yoga."

She had actually been taking Viserion to the vet as he was due for one of his injections, but he didn't need to know those personal details about her life anymore.

Daenerys hated dropping any of her cats off for check-ups and injections, because then they would have to stay there for the rest of the afternoon until she could pick them up after work, as she didn't have time to go to the vet, back to her house and then back to office. Due to this she usually took a holiday from work just to sort them all out to go to the vet, but Viserion was due to go and she definitely couldn't take time off work now.

"I'm happy you –,"

"Jon knows about us."

Daario's face was frozen for a few seconds as if she had pressed pause on this scene, but then he shook his head, beginning to comprehend it.

"What? You mean…"

"He saw us on Friday and guessed."

"Well, what's he going to do?" He took his face in his hand and seemed to be massaging his cheeks. It was clear the worst possibilities of what this meant were rolling around in his head.

"I don't think he'll do anything, but… obviously it's too dangerous for us to keep doing this when it's such a critical time for me. He found out and who else could?"

Daario didn't want to put his job in jeopardy. This was something Daenerys knew and was willing to wave a threat to his job in his face.

"Yeah… Yeah, you're right. So we need to be more careful. Well, we shouldn't be meeting across the road in a…"

His voice drifted off before he got to the word café, as if he realized this wasn't a game plan meeting. It was as if the wheels were finally turning to realize they had never met in a café before and if it was just a plan of how they needed to be more careful then they would have met after work at his or hers, so then they could still have sex, but this was all carefully planned to avoid doing just that.

"Shit, you want to take a break?"

 _No_ , she wanted to end it, but he was just not getting to that conclusion fast enough.

"Daario, baby," She bit down on her lip after saying that. She hated that she was resorting to that word to soften the blow and make it seem like she cared. "You know I'm more than happy to put this on pause, as long as you know that we're both in this for sex. _This_ isn't a relationship."

"But we _can_ be in a relationship after this is all over and you've won." The disappointment wasn't only visible in his face, but in every word he spoke.

"We can consider that," Although Daenerys thought she had planned everything she needed to say to him, she was now struggling with what she needed to do now to make sure he would be as fine as possible with this news. "But I'm not sure. I really can't be distracted thinking about it now. Can we wait until after this is over? Please?"

His response to this question was vital. If he allowed her to think about it then he couldn't screw her over in the coming weeks, because then there would be no chance for them in the future. If he wanted a direct answer now then she would have to tell him the whole truth and her chance at the promotion would be done.

She knew she should have never got herself in this position, but she didn't know until a few days ago that was a position she was in – she didn't know that Daario was wanting a relationship with her, it was the last thing she could have expected.

Although her brother wanted her to use Daario for personal gain in the office, since her brother had gone, there had been little opportunity for her to do that and so she used his body instead. She didn't want a relationship with any man, but women have needs and Daario was seemingly perfect for it because he didn't want a relationship either. How wrong had she been?

Jon was right. Sex or promotion – she was using him.

She didn't want Jon to see her like that and with this he wouldn't. Or she hoped he wouldn't.

"Okay," It felt like her breath had been held for an eternity to hear Daario to say that. She was safe. "But if you want to fool around before this is over, I wouldn't object."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," She said with a roll of her eyes before giving him a small smile. "Thank you, Daario. I'll see you back in the office."

She gathered up her bags and didn't spare a glance at her untouched coffee, but instead smiled fondly at Daario who was looking up at her with the same sort of smile. She trusted him more in that moment than any moment before to not mess her around, but there was also something there behind that smile of his that suggested that he knew that this was maybe the end.

Her head immediately wanted to go to thoughts of Jon and that close proximity yesterday in the lift and that she had wanted to kiss him yesterday, but she had to make a call.

She couldn't go running towards Jon to discuss the biggest decision she had made in the past few months, because that probably wasn't where they were at right now and she would only want to tell him so that she could kiss him… Was she _really_ thinking about kissing him now?

He was an infuriating person as she couldn't figure him out, but that didn't matter when you just wanted to kiss someone.

Daenerys immediately made the phone call as she got out of Starbucks, if anything to just stop her thinking about kissing stupid Jon Snow.

"Dany!" The sound of Missandei nearly squealing down the phone at the fact that she was calling made her grin. "I am utterly swamped in paperwork at the moment. We're taking on a new client and it's just… never mind, speak to me and I will listen to the best of my ability."

Missandei was perhaps the only person Daenerys knew who had a busier work schedule than she did, but that was pretty much a given when you worked for a law firm. She didn't even think Missandei was being rude by not giving her the full attention she wanted, because she did the same thing frequently to her. They had a terrible problem with ringing each other at the most inconsiderate times.

"Missy, I won't keep you, but you know this event we're -,"

"Yes, I'll come!" Daenerys swallowed a laugh at her best friend's enthusiasm as she wanted to reply in complete seriousness.

"I may not have been inviting you."

"Well, please do, because I need a social event to be excited for!"

"Okay, I'm _sure_ I can get you on the guest list." Daenerys replied, finally letting out a laugh at Missandei's pleas.

"What else?" She stopped to cross the road back over to the office building, scrunching her nose up as she was once again in awe of how well Missandei knew her.

"What?"

"You would have probably just texted me that, so there's something else." Even though she was supposed to be distracted by her work, she seemed awfully focused on this other bit of news that Daenerys should be giving her.

Although this had been the actual purpose of her call, it was something that was bound to lead to more questions if Missandei was as focused on this call as she appeared to be. And Daenerys wasn't sure she was ready for questions about what sparked this decision, however she had to come out with it now as Missandei was on her trail.

"I just ended things with Daario."

There was an audible gasp on the other end of the phone.

"Thank Christ!" Missandei knew that Daenerys never sought out a relationship and after quite a few years of being friends, she didn't expect anything else. That didn't mean that she liked her strange one year entanglement with this man. "Have you upgraded then? You wouldn't have ditched an easy thing like that for nothing."

She really didn't like how well Missandei knew how her mind worked, but at least she had a half-truth for why she ended things.

"Well, it was getting quite complicated with this promotion."

"Granted that wouldn't have looked great when it all came out." Missandei sighed, either from dealing with work or out of boredom with Daenerys' answer. "I'm going to have to go as something disgusting has come up in this file, so give me something to bide me over before I can call you up tonight about it."

Did she want to tell someone about Jon? Or did she want to keep it in until the issue with Jon went away forever?

She had now crossed the road and decided if she was going to discuss this matter further she would have to stay out of the office and so she leaned against one of the pillars outside the grand entrance. Checking the coast was clear, she began with a nerve filled voice.

"I think I like someone."

" _Like_ someone? Okay, say no more. You _liking_ someone is bizarre. You never said once that you liked Daario. Or anyone else for that matter."

"Calm down, it's nothing, really, I promise."

"It's something and we will be discussing further in the greatest detail imaginable, but who is it?"

"That's the thing… It's the person I'm competing with for the promotion." Daenerys was interrupted slightly by a loud laugh on the other end of the phone. She paused, waiting for Missandei to stop finding her situation so hilarious. "I don't want anything to happen, because that would be crazy and he doesn't even like me and -,"

"Maybe you should just find out. What have you got to lose?"

"Uhm… my job?"

"Hmm… Anyway I really have to go. Let's discuss this later, okay?"

"Okay. Bye."

She hung up and pressed the back of her head against her pillar. Well, now it had been said – the thought was out there and nothing she could deny in the future.

* * *

Daenerys checked her watch as she walked hurriedly to the photocopier. Great, she was running late to go to the vet all because she had been so busy with her actual job that she hadn't had the time to focus on any promotion tasks, most importantly a manager meeting she was expected to sit in on tomorrow.

She needed to photocopy the figures she was bringing to the meeting, then she needed to pick up Viserion and after that she would treat herself to a large glass of wine as she read over all the figures and notes for the meeting. She was currently unprepared, but that would change by the end of the night.

She pressed in the task on the machine and got out her phone to make a call to the vet clinic to ask them to hold on to her precious Viserion for five... or thirty extra minutes.

That's when the thing started beeping.

"What are you doing?" She looked at the screen to see the words any non-photocopier/printer savvy person would dread to see: 'Paper jam'. "No, _no, no_ , please don't do that."

She placed her phone on top of it as she crouched down to find the root of the issue. She quickly thought she had found the piece of paper causing all this mess and victoriously pulled it out of the machine only to hear it still beeping.

"Why are you doing this to me?" A bang on the machine startled her up into a standing position.

Jon was standing by the now non-beeping machine with what could be described as an almost grin on his face. She found herself practically blushing at him being here now that she had told Missandei about him; it was as if she thought he had listened in on that conversation and knew how she felt, but to blush? How old did she think she was?

"Did you just fix it?" She asked incredulously, as the machine started spurting out her sheets.

"You just need to give it a tap in the right spot and it'll work." She was flushing now as if he was describing something far more scandalous than tapping a photocopier. They were discussing a photocopier – nothing else.

"That's a good trick," She said, turning away from his staring eyes to begin gathering up her sheets.

The thought crossed her mind that maybe she should tell Jon that it was over with Daario now, because after all he suggested that she should end things with him, so it would be right to tell him it was done and all was fair now, right?

A part of her did hope that being fair wasn't the only reason Jon wanted her to end things with Daario and maybe, possibly, he felt something inexplicable towards her like she did to him, but that felt like a reach, even for her.

"So –,"

"I –,"

They both let out a nervous laugh as they started speaking at the same time. Daenerys smiled, tucking a flyaway piece of hair behind her ear before gesturing that he should continue first.

"So is this for the meeting tomorrow?"

"Yeah, it is. I know it's not much to do, but..."

"You like to scare yourself before anything like this, I know."

She slowly nodded, looking right into his eyes now that looked friendly and warm for once, not the cold eyes she always liked to assume he had. Him knowing a little bit about her should scare her, because she didn't like many people getting to know her. That always got dangerous and everything about this thing she felt for Jon was dangerous, but she realized that she didn't want to think about that.

"I wanted to speak to you about something actually," Jon was smiling, as if intrigued to hear what she had to say and of course this caused Daenerys to become more excited about sharing this with him.

And of course her phone started buzzing right at that moment. She considered ignoring it in the fear that it might be Daario calling to ruin the moment of her telling Jon that things were over between them – he would definitely do something as annoying as that – but a glance at her screen told her that it was the clinic calling.

She glanced between the screen and Jon for a few seconds before holding out a finger to Jon.

"Sorry, I really need to get this." Jon nodded.

"We can talk later."

She walked away with the phone before answering it as she was never a fan of people listening in on her calls regardless of the topic of conversation.

"Miss Targaryen?"

"Yes, yes, that's me. Sorry, I know I should really be there now -,"

"Your cat has had an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccination given to him today." Daenerys felt her world slow down as her brain couldn't react to that, but every bone in her body told her this was terrible.

"What? What does that mean?"

* * *

All the lights in the conference room caused the migraine Daenerys had growing to throb harder. She knew this migraine was due to stress and lack of sleep, but she told herself that if she got through this meeting then she could get through the rest of her day.

A glance to her phone told her that she had no calls yet and instead of that calming her, it worried her more. She had left Viserion at the overnight clinic for an extortionate fee as she couldn't take him home due to this stupid fucking meeting.

Otherwise she could have taken the day off to be with Viserion to keep him under observation like the vet said he needed. It was very lucky that Viserion's reaction to the injection hadn't been anything worse, like death, but he had still suffered a seizure and vomiting.

He had never reacted like that before after an injection and if he had then regardless of this promotion she would have made sure she had been there with him the whole time. She did her best to spend as much time as she could with him last night though in order to make up for it. She didn't leave the overnight clinic until almost midnight and went in to see him that morning to see how he was doing.

Perhaps seeing him in the clinic, looking unwell, made her feel all the more worse as well.

"Morning, Daenerys," She had hardly noticed another presence joining her in the room as she was so zoned out. She was staring at her notes in the hopes of picking up some of the information she had written down, but it wasn't happening for her.

"Oh, good morning, Tyrion," She said, attempting to seem completely alert and ready for the meeting.

After Tyrion came in and took his seat, everyone else required for the meeting started trickling in. Daario took a seat next Tyrion and Jon came to sit right next to Daenerys.

"Are you okay?" He leaned over to her, the soft whisper tickling her skin. If this had been yesterday then her skin would have been on fire, but at this very moment she felt numb to everything. She nodded in response to him, refusing to look at him so that he couldn't see that she was lying.

"Well, good morning everyone. I would like to start this by welcoming Jon and Daenerys to our meeting today." It felt like an unnecessary comment to make as there were only five people in the room in total and Daenerys hated the extra attention to herself.

"Okay, Daenerys, how about you start us off with your findings?"

 _Well_ , this felt like an exceptionally cruel trick to be playing on her. Of course the person who was least prepared was being asked to speak first.

"Okay… If you'd like to look at these sheets that I've prepared on our highest potential clients and potential revenue they could bring with them." She stood up to hand out her photocopies and sat down slowly as she gave them time to look over it.

"We have invited key decision makers from the biggest potential clients to our event next week and hope they attend to make these figures a reality."

Like Jon had suggested yesterday this meeting wasn't a major deal, so they probably didn't care that much about her estimated figures anyway. She could just continue to skirt around the –

"Where are the increased costs to us from these clients?"

Never mind.

She could barely remember whether she had included that in her stupid sheet, let alone find it.

"Uhm…" She glanced down at her sheet, her eyes flitting desperately around the page until a finger pointed out exactly where it was. "If you look at the bottom of the table I have assigned the costs there."

"Well, thank you Daenerys. Moving on to Jon."

She sat in silence for the rest of the meeting with flushed cheeks. This time it wasn't out of a schoolgirl crush on Jon, it was pure embarrassment mixed with rage that he would point out those figures to her where everyone else could see how she was failing at the most menial of tasks.

* * *

Tyrion and the others stayed behind at the meeting, allowing Jon and Daenerys to leave first. She slammed the door behind them before sharply addressing Jon.

"Why did you have to help me? That was so much more embarrassing than me just getting it wrong." She stormed across the corridor floor, hearing Jon just behind her managing to keep up with her every step. She attempted to walk faster, but those steps kept following her.

"Sorry, I _shouldn't_ have helped you?" He was being sarcastic with her. He didn't know that sarcasm when Daenerys was angry was not a good step. Instead of walking back into the main office, she took them down a side corridor and stopped in front of one of the stationery stockrooms.

She now looked back up at Jon to direct her total anger at him.

"Don't forget that this is all an observation. You might have thought you were helping, and _yes_ , that's sweet, but they'll see that as you being stronger than me."

And just as she said those words, she realized she was being a complete bitch to Jon… _again_. He was being sweet and just helping her. The issues she expressed were problems with herself, not him. It wasn't his fault that she wasn't prepared and looked stupid for not knowing what she was talking about.

"Ugh, I shouldn't be shouting at you, I fucked it up myself."

She opened the stockroom door, as she honestly needed to escape the office and possibly cry to herself. It would be good if Jon left her alone now, but of course he wasn't going to do that. He stood in the doorway, as Daenerys found a box filled with paper to collapse upon.

"What is going on with you?"

He shut the door behind him, leaving them in the dimly lit close quarters of the stockroom. She clenched the sides of the box, feeling herself about to explode on poor Jon.

"My cat had a bad reaction to an injection yesterday and I should be with him right now instead of here." Her voice cracked as she was on the verge of guilty tears, so to cover it up, she tried to make a joke, as she glanced up at Jon. "Oh my God, I sound like a crazy cat lady."

She let out a shaky laugh, but instantly stopped when she realized it made her sound even more upset. Glancing up again at Jon, she saw him quickly approaching the makeshift seat that Daenerys had created.

" _No_ , no, I have a dog and if anything happened to him I wouldn't be here." He sat down next to her and his arm hovered near her back, like he didn't want to comfort her too much or was scared of her reaction – she couldn't figure that part out. A thought in the back of her head told her that this was the closest they had ever been.

Finding out that he had a dog was blessed new information about him. It made him more likeable and made her relax as she knew he could relate to her current predicament.

"I should take the rest of the day off as that's over. I've never taken a single sick day, they owe me that much."

A silence fell between them, as Daenerys tried to wipe at her eyes discreetly. She was sure only a few tears had fallen out of her frustration, but she didn't really think it was wise to let Jon see her at most vulnerable; she also guessed it was too late for that.

"I thought maybe something happened with Daario and that's why you were upset."

Oh, _God_. She had wanted him to know about her ending things with Daario, but she didn't want him to think that it was something that would upset her.

"No! We're actually over." She snapped her head around to face him full-on, eager to correct him on this idea of his.

"Ah…"

She smiled at him, wondering what was there for them now that she had said that. It was difficult to gage his reaction as he looked away from her at that moment. There was a hint of a smile, but maybe that was just because he could see her smiling.

"Well, thank you for this. I'll never know how you can be so nice to me after how I've behaved."

His face was completely visible now and the way he looked at her in that very moment was something she had never experienced before. It was as if she was lovely and special and perfect and all of that petrified her so completely, but she still wanted to keep him looking at her like that.

It was so intense to look at someone when you were this close to each other. In fact they were so close that their noses were practically touching – if he had a nosebleed, she would probably be able to wipe off the blood with her tongue. A disgusting thought like that crossing her mind made her realize that she couldn't let this moment pass them by.

Her hand itched against his arm and his arm moved after like she had set off a domino reaction and then his hand was against her damp cheek. His thumb moved ever so slightly to carefully wipe at that dampness.

"I like crazy cat ladies."

The silliness of that got her letting out the lightest of giggles, but she was falling into him to finally eliminate the distance between their lips. It was the quickest of moments that would stay with her forever to remind her of the surprisingly softness of his lips, the reassurance of his hand on her face and the fact that she wanted it to go on for longer, but it was over.

Her eyelids had closed as if unable to stay open whilst she was lost in this moment. Now they blinked slowly open to see Jon was just opening his eyes too. His thumb lightly stroked her face once more as he started to smile down at her. Her eyes darted between his, still slow to react to what had just happened, but when her head caught up with the moment she moved back, his hand slipping from her face.

What the FUCK did she think she was doing?

On her list of life decisions kissing Jon Snow surely was one of the worst ones she had made, right? Not only was he her competition, but simply one peck on the lips was sending her head into overdrive. Missandei had said she never liked someone before and it was becoming apparent as Daenerys stared into his eyes that no, she had _never_ liked someone before.

That was dangerous.

"I better go home then," She mumbled, unable to hide how flustered she was. She stood up abruptly, avoiding total eye contact.

"Oh, okay."

She wasn't waiting for an answer, because she didn't want anything to pull her back and luckily for her she was at the door as he said so she got the strength to open the door and walk out of it leaving Jon alone in the stockroom.


	8. Do I Wanna Know?

I'm sorry to interrupt it's just I'm constantly  
On the cusp of trying to kiss you  
I don't know if you feel the same as I do  
But we could be together, if you wanted to  
\- Arctic Monkeys, Do I Wanna Know?

* * *

"Stark, please." Jon told the restaurant host. The host looked up from his computer screen to him with a smile.

"Ah yes, they're already here, so if you'd like to follow me."

Jon obliged, already aware that they were here; he had received texts and calls from all of them, but mainly Arya. It seemed that every day was a day that Jon would need to stay late at work and unfortunately he couldn't avoid that this evening, so his cousins were left waiting at least forty-five minutes for his arrival.

The host didn't even need to announce Jon's arrival to the table as Arya could see him approaching as soon as he entered the main area of the restaurant that was buzzing with people. She jumped from her chair and ran straight into his arms.

"Jon, you took your bloody time!" She shrieked, not sounding as annoyed as her words indicated she was.

He lifted his tiny cousin up and off her feet, as she giggled in excitement of being reunited. Jon hugged her tightly with a laugh and looking over Arya's head to return the smile that he saw Sansa and Robb giving him. Arya eventually leaped down from Jon and beamed up at him.

"Go on then, how much have you missed me?" She said, leading him over to their table.

"I only saw you two months ago," He responded, ruffling the back of her hair like he used to when they were younger. He and Arya always seemed to revert back to when they were younger when they got together – it wasn't like that with anyone else in his family.

"Okay, but are you excited – wait, why are none of you fussing over Jon as much as me?" Arya practically shouted as they reached their table, completely forgetting her conversation with Jon. Meanwhile, Jon was giving Robb a pat on the back and grinning over at Sansa.

"Arya, I saw Jon two weeks ago." Sansa explained with a slight roll of her eyes, taking out her phone from her little bag on the table.

She had come over one weekday night for dinner and to walk Ghost, whilst the evenings were still light. It was something they tried to do at least once a month. Jon would have preferred to see the one family member who lived near him more often, but he knew once a month was pushing it already with Sansa as she had her own life filled with student parties and assessments to attend to.

He figured due to naturally being closer, in both proximity and in relationship, with Arya that he would be seeing her at least weekly.

"And we're men, we don't hug like that." Jon let a laugh out at Robb's reasoning.

"Well, okay, are you excited that I'm in London now at least?" Arya continued on with her previous question to Jon as if nothing had interrupted her the first time around.

"How could I not be excited for that?" Jon responded, flashing Arya a grin.

"Because you'll have to be seeing her face every day?" Robb probed, leading Arya to throw a bit of bread at him.

"Arya!" Sansa scolded, before turning back to stare at her phone.

Seeing Sansa look at her phone seemed to trigger a reaction in Jon to look at his own phone. There were no texts or missed calls, not that he was expecting anything, but he still had been hoping there was something from _someone_.

But why would she contact him? He hadn't heard from her since Wednesday when they had shared that strange moment in the stockroom. He realized once they had kissed that he had been wanting that to happen for quite some time – maybe even possibly before that.

Okay, well he definitely knew that already, because there was last year's work Christmas party where she had looked absolutely incredible in a white flowing dress and he had spent most of that night looking at her, even attempting to speak to her. However, that kiss was definitely the moment he realized that kissing her was no longer outside the realm of possibility – that all this time he hadn't been thinking about kissing someone totally outside of his league.

She did run away pretty quickly after the 'barely there' kiss had occurred and had done an excellent job of avoiding him the past two days. He figured that them kissing was something for her to think about and analyze, because of course this was a very complicated situation, however he also thought that _maybe_ she did think it was a mistake and she was better than him, like she had suggested with every move, every sentence since they had started competing, and so that kiss was an exception to their relationship – a moment worth forgetting.

Even though he wanted more than anything to know what she was thinking, he didn't send her a text or attempt any form of communication with her, because did he really want to know what this was between them?

And he would try his best not to think about her tonight.

"What made you pick London though? I fondly recall you once saying that you would never visit me here, because it was filled with pricks and snobs." Robb snorted with laughter as soon as Jon revisited this story. Arya sighed as if she had been explaining her decision to her family and friends ever since she had made it.

"That was _years_ ago, I've matured -"

"Doubtful," Sansa provided with a scoff.

"Anyway, loads of my friends moved away for uni and I just thought, you know, I should experience the fucking world. Plus you're down here." Arya finished her sentence, as if that was just a parting thought, but the smile she gave Jon suggested it wasn't just that. Jon returned her smile, as he was always melted to a smile when Arya was around.

"And so am I!" Sansa piped in, causing Arya return to her scowling expression.

"I'm _trying_ to forget that part. Luckily you're still an hour away." Arya gave Sansa a dismissive side-eye before giving her full attention back to Jon. "And don't get me wrong, as soon as I'm done with uni, I'm back at home."

Jon didn't think her moving to London was really experiencing the world, but he wasn't surprised at all by the fact that she wanted to return home after that.

"Are you sure? I was hoping we might be rid of you." Robb sighed, shaking his head.

"After Jon and I show you around here, you might fall in love with the place." Sansa said, finally giving her complete attention to the conversation now to dramatically throw an arm around Arya, which was of course an attempt to piss her off, and talk in her overly sweet sounds.

Jon didn't stop smiling from the start of joining the Starks for dinner till now, because he was so happy to be completely enthralled in the return to normality. They always bickered and talked at high speed, making them all feel like they truly belonged in this moment, in this family. It allowed him to forget everything else momentarily.

"Hmmm… I wouldn't bet on it." She threw Sansa's arm off her, as Sansa gave a soft giggle at getting a suitable reaction out of Arya. "Anyway Jon is _far_ too important to be showing me around."

Jon opened his mouth to quickly escape any conversation about himself that could lead on to work and, horribly, Daenerys.

That could not come up tonight.

"Ah yes, how is the promotion going with the hottie?"

Robb clearly had other plans.

" _Hottie_?" Sansa and Arya asked in unison, looking as if their ears had perked up in interest at this parting joke Robb was bringing up.

He should have joined in the joke right then and there, but his cheeks were flushed, his palms were clammy and he couldn't think of what to say. He was panicking and it was only going to make everyone more curious about her.

"Has everyone else ordered?" He turned away from everyone, looking helplessly for a menu on the table to take the attention away from him, but he knew everyone was staring at him and it wasn't going to be easily forgotten.

"A selection of tapas is coming and this is for you." Robb tapped a pint of beer next to Jon, all the while smirking. "Please continue on."

"Well… Uh, the competition is still going on and it's tough, but I think it's going better than expected." He said, firmly concentrating on that part of the question, as the other part didn't matter.

"Isn't it awful what happened?" Sansa asked, her voice suddenly full of concern. Jon figured he knew what she was referring to and it was worth keeping her on this topic instead.

"What?"

"Cersei Lannister's death! I followed her on Instagram, her fashion was -," Unfortunately Sansa was cut off by Arya, so Jon couldn't encourage her to continue discussing this matter.

"Forget that bullshit, what's this about a hottie?" Jon internally groaned as this topic just wouldn't be dropped.

"Robb is just talking shit. He's made up that the person I'm competing against is attractive." Jon tried to shake his head dismissively. Of course it was something Robb had made up, but it turned out he was accurate in this instance.

"Well, isn't she?" Robb asked, still with an easy smirk on his face as he took a casual sip of his beer.

"Uh… that's not something… I suppose…" Jon trailed off, feeling complete and utter irritation with himself that he couldn't laugh it off and exude nonchalance over the matter. His mind was filled with that fuzzy kiss as he took several gulps of his own pint. Robb burst out into laughter.

"Fuck, I _was_ joking, but you're taking this a bit too seriously."

"What's her name?" Sansa asked, catching Jon off-guard with that question.

"Uh… Daenerys," He shouldn't have said anything at all. Obviously.

"Oh, that's not a common name." With that Sansa resumed tapping quickly on her phone and Arya leaned over for a better look.

"Wait, what are you -," Jon began to ask, his voice full of the panic that now grasped at him.

"Hey guys, I've got your tapas!" A waitress interrupted Jon by beginning to place their tapas onto their table. Jon kept his eyes on Sansa and Arya, fearing the worst.

"Oh my God, she's beautiful!" Ah, so the worst had come true.

"Is that definitely her?" Arya asked, narrowing her eyes inquisitively.

"It says she works at the same company as Jon. Is that her?" She waved her phone in front of Jon and Robb snatched the phone to look at it as well.

"Jesus, is that her?" Robb asked.

Jon fell silent as he stared at the Facebook profile he was being forced to look at. He hated to admit that he had stumbled upon her profile in a once-a-month visit to Facebook that wasn't long after last year's Christmas party and although she had a new profile picture up now – it was still undoubtedly her.

When he had last stumbled upon it was a photo of her and what looked like a friend posing with a cocktail. Now she had a casual photo of her sitting on a sofa, lifting up a cat to give it a kiss on the head. The fact that the photo had changed from the typical posed photo that he saw a lot of girls doing to this regular, and rather adorable, photo caused him to slowly start to smile. His cousins seemed to catch onto it immediately.

"You're smiling – what the hell is going on?" Arya asked in a rather aggravated tone as she hated not knowing what was going on.

"Nothing, nothing," Jon said in a serious attempt of disregard, even going as far as to wave the phone away. Sansa pulled the phone back, an almost knowing smile appearing on her face as she glanced back at the screen of her phone.

"You like her!" She finally said in a voice filled with equal parts glee and accusation. Jon shook his head slowly, but his cousins were already all grinning at this prospect.

"Jon liking someone!" Arya exclaimed, like it was the most shocking revelation in the world.

Truthfully it was probably quite shocking.

He hadn't been in a proper relationship with anyone since he had moved to London. He didn't like the idea of online dating and it wasn't like he was the most social being to meet someone when he was out, so he would date now and again, but it was never anything serious. These dates weren't something he rushed to tell any of his family members, so they would only remember his relationship with a girl named Ygritte.

They were together for about two years and even lived together at one point for just a few months, but when Jon got the opportunity to work in London, he decided to take it after many talks with her. Ygritte would never leave her home and they both knew that, but she wanted him to explore the opportunity. He didn't know if they would still be together if he stayed, but he didn't like to think about that too much as he knew that she was now married with a baby.

"And does she like you back?" Robb asked, enjoying Jon getting embarrassed a little too much for Jon's liking.

There was no point trying to deny it anymore, because the way his cousins were looking at him it was as if they could see the kiss replaying over and over again in his head.

"I don't know," He reluctantly told them, watching as everyone's faces grew impossibly more excited by this statement.

"She might like you back?"

"You're saying you like her?"

Arya and Sansa asked their questions in unison, Sansa looked like she was witnessing a romantic movie unfolding in front of her and Arya looking shocked, yet mildly disgusted by the idea.

"It's a complicated situation." Jon said, before sighing as he gave in to telling his cousins the most recent development. "We kissed earlier this week, but -,"

"But what?!" Arya demanded, despite the fact that she didn't even let Jon finish his sentence.

" _But_ we haven't spoken since."

"Where did you kiss?" Robb asked, helping himself to the tapas as his sisters were too busy giving their full attention to the story unravelling.

"On the lips." Jon replied in confusion, wondering how that was even a question. Would he be freaking out as much over a kiss on the cheek?

Actually the answer was probably still yes, as Daenerys kissing him on the cheek was still something to fantasize over.

" _Where_? As in location?" Robb didn't hide his laughter at Jon not understanding him.

"A stockroom." Robb raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything else. Either he just wanted to get back to eating or he imagined their kiss being far more sensual than it actually was.

"Hey, back to this!" Arya slammed her tiny fist on the table for the attention, chewing on some food as she continued on. "Why haven't you spoken to her?"

"Well, I just haven't heard from her and -,"

"Jon!" Sansa almost sounded completely outraged by that response. Her eyes were wide and she shook her head furiously. "The guy always texts first! Those are just the basic rules of dating."

"Her cat was sick and -,"

"That doesn't mean you don't contact her!" Sansa was speaking with such determination and knowledge that he felt like he had to follow her instructions.

"Down that pint and drop her a text." Robb said simply, nodding towards Jon's half-finished pint. Jon did as he said, thinking the drink might help him not be so nervous about a stupid text.

"What do I say?" He asked, sounding rather desperate for ideas, which he kind of was, as who knows what he would say otherwise.

"Ask her what the hell is going on between you." This was Arya's suggestion that Sansa quickly laughed off.

"No, absolutely not. Ask her how her cat is, how she is and that you've thinking about her since the kiss." And then it was Robb's turn to scoff at Sansa's idea causing Sansa's face to fall a little bit.

"I don't think Jon wants to sound like a total sap. Just ask her what she's doing."

Jon took all their ideas into consideration and began typing out his message to her. It felt like his fingers were shaking as he pressed send. After it had gone out to her, he took another gulp of his nearly empty pint and kept his phone, screen up, so he could see if he got a reply.

"Are you going to tell us what you said or just let us guess?" Arya asked, not hiding her need to know.

"I just said, 'are you okay?'" Sansa let out a deflated sigh.

"Jon, what an awful text."

He tried to concentrate on his food in an attempt to force himself not to look at his phone, but avoiding the temptation was futile. His cousins continued talking and criticize his short text, whilst he directed his eyes on a strict line between his food and his phone.

This was, of course, fucking ridiculous. It was absolutely fine and intelligent for her not to have contacted him and vice versa, because they were competing against each other! Adding another dimension to that relationship was not very wise at all. What would happen when this was all over? Or, better yet, what on earth would be happening now? What was he hoping to achieve by contacting her? What did he want to happen between them?

Ultimately it was either going to be purely sexual between them… Or was the intriguing and disguised softness of her appealing enough for him to want more? Would she want more from him as well?

The questions were cut off in his mind when his phone lightly buzzed.

"She's texted back," He uselessly announced, yet it caused his cousins to all stop talking and turn expectantly towards him.

 _Daenerys: I'm okay, thank you. It's nice to hear from you. Viserion (my cat) is making a swift recovery. How are you?_

He read the text out loud, only processing the words afterwards. His thumbs hovered over the screen, wondering what he should say to her next.

"What are you doing?" Robb asked, practically swatting Jon's hand away.

"Replying?" Jon asked, again, confused by Robb's question.

"You don't do it straight away."

"I think it's nice when a boy replies straight away!" Sansa argued, her eyes glaring over at Robb.

"She didn't even say anything about the kiss!" Arya said, looking just as confused as Jon felt over this situation.

"Blame Jon's shitty text for that." Robb commented. Jon felt Robb staring at him out of the corner of his eye with complete and utter disappointment. Jon understood though, because he was also disappointed that he had spent so much time growing up with Robb and yet he still didn't have his skill level when it came to talking to women. In fact he was nowhere near his level.

"Anyway, I'm replying." Jon said, ignoring the others. Robb shrugged as if he had done all he could do and helped himself to more food.

 _Jon: I'm good, just out for dinner with my family right now._

"What did you say then?" Sansa asked as soon as he had put his phone down.

He read out the text and heard an almost unanimous groan when he had finished speaking.

"How are you so bad at this? If you don't ask a question then you can't keep the conversation flowing!" Sansa complained.

Arya returned Jon's confused stare with a blank expression – she clearly didn't know how these things worked. He turned his head slowly to look at Robb with hopeless eyes and Robb patted his shoulder.

"Yeah, she's right." He gave their waitress eye contact to get her to come over before continuing on. "Now that those five minutes of making fun of Jon's failure to speak to women are over, let's have another pint, finish this food, so Jon and I can go get wasted."

"Uh… You missed me out of that?" Arya looked pissed off, as she must have known already that she wasn't really invited to that.

"I'm dropping you back off to student halls and then I have to get my train." Sansa answered, causing Arya to let out a low laugh.

"You can go and get your train whilst I stay out with these guys."

"You don't know how to get around here yet."

"No…" Arya sighed, looking like she had now been defeated. "Fine, drinks are well expensive down here anyway."

Jon let out a laugh. He checked his phone and didn't see a text from the person he wanted to receive it from and so he decided to put it back in his pocket.

He should be focused on having this great moment with his family anyway; even if his head was drifting back to those ten seconds of bliss.

* * *

Two pints of beer, copious amounts of food, Arya not understanding London and a group selfie to send to his aunt and uncle later, Jon and Robb had left the restaurant.

It was weird saying goodbye to Arya, knowing that he would be seeing her most probably extremely soon. She still hugged him like it would be a few months away and that had made Jon smile.

The person he wouldn't be seeing in a while though would be Robb, so Robb seemed to have plans to make this a grand affair of drinking and wouldn't take Jon's declarations of missing his last train home as an excuse to not do it.

"You can just take a fucking taxi!" He exclaimed, before chugging at his next bottle of beer in the slightly dingy bar they had chosen. Robb seemed to chew on his bottom lip as soon as the words left him, as if remembering Jon's dislike of anyone driving him around in a car. "Or you can crash at my hotel room."

"Okay, we'll see." Robb already seemed distracted though.

"Yeah, we'll have to, because those two ladies are looking over at us." Robb gave an easy smile over in their direction and Jon was again left in confusion how he had not picked up just one or two tips when it came to girls. "We might need separate rooms."

Jon had no intention of picking up a girl, like Robb clearly was. One, Jon was not very good at it and two, he doubted that any girl would walk in to that bar that would appeal to him the way that Daenerys currently was.

That thought reminded him to check his phone again. No text yet.

"Hello ladies," Suddenly the two girls who were sat at a completely different table were now standing right next to them.

Jon blinked in surprise, unable to gage what exactly had happened there. Robb seemed to capture the attention of the slightly prettier girl, whilst the other girl was moving closer to Jon and smiling at him. He didn't know what to do, so he simply smiled back and took another gulp of his beer. Were they going to have to talk?

"I'm Melissa."

Clearly talking was expected.

The girl was rather pretty. She had red hair and big brown eyes with a pleasant smile.

"Jon," He said, not knowing what else he was supposed to be saying. Despite how difficult he found it to talk Daenerys sometimes, he was usually able to struggle through it, because he actually wanted to speak to her most of the time.

"What do you do then, Jon?" She asked, still grinning at him as she spoke.

"I work at a company."

"A company?" She let out a somewhat irritating giggle at this. "You're very mysterious, aren't you?"

"Uh… I guess." He shrugged and that got her to stop laughing. An awkward silence occurred then before Jon realized he should ask the question back. "What do you do?"

"I'm a nurse." She didn't look as interested in the conversation anymore and her next sentence proved that. "I'm just going to the toilet."

Well, just as expected, that hadn't worked out.

He decided that he should definitely just finish his pint and call this night over. Robb looked like he was having a great time and didn't exactly need his help. Jon would still be able to catch his last train home, so that was exciting.

He was about to tell Robb that exactly, but as if Robb sensed what was happening, he turned his attention away from his girl to put his arm around Jon and bring him closely in.

"Okay, mate, you're clearly too hung up on what's-her-name to even try with anyone else, so this is all you need to say; 'what are you doing?' In fact, come here." He took the phone out of Jon's hands and typed exactly that.

"That's not going to do anything, but thanks. I'm just finishing my drink and going, okay?" Robb grinned and gave a shrug.

"Let's meet up tomorrow before I go then."

And with that Robb turned back around. Jon quickly tried to down his drink, so that he could leave without having an awkward encounter with Millie… or was it Melissa? He couldn't remember.

He also had forgotten that he had kept his phone in his hand and so when it buzzed, it completely surprised him.

 _Daenerys: I'm just at home. Are you free?_

He couldn't believe it.

He needed to trust Robb with all future decisions from this point onwards. How had that worked?

His fingers couldn't type out his reply fast enough.

 _Jon: I'm free._

And rather quickly back he received another text from her with just an address. That would be her address, he thought.

What the hell was going on? He was going to have to go, he realized, otherwise he would never get a chance like this again and oh, how he didn't want this chance to go to waste.

He finished the rest of his drink and tapped Robb on the shoulder to say bye.

"How did that work?" He simply asked with a bemused laugh. Robb laughed too in an excited manner for his cousin.

"What are you still doing standing here?"

Jon didn't stick around to reply, but just simply laughed as he walked out of the bar.

He didn't want to stop walking until he got to hers for the realization that he would now be seeing Daenerys might be too much for him to keep on walking towards her place.

* * *

The underground ride really got him to sober up quite a bit and that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Now his head was filled with anxiety for this interaction. What was going to happen when he got there?

Although he kind of knew the answer to that already – no girl would invite a guy over at 11PM to have a talk, play games or watch a movie.

No, there was only one possible outcome here and that had him freaking out.

As he walked down the road, coming up to the block of flats that he assumed were hers, he took the time to concentrate on other matters, like how much he had enjoyed his dinner with his family, or, more importantly, how conveniently close Daenerys lived to work.

She lived incredibly close. She probably never had to use public transport to get there, hence the reason why she had wanted to take a taxi that day to the hotel, because she never _ever_ had to take the underground.

A woman leaving the building that he figured he was supposed to be entering brought his attention back to this all important moment.

His hands were unbelievably sweaty and he had no idea what his first words to her were going to be, but he didn't really have time to consider that.

As he grew closer to the building, he was suddenly surrounded by the strong light of the lobby and that allowed him to see the ethereal being of Daenerys staring at him just beyond the glass door. It was the first time he had seen her blonde hair left to hang down, framing her face in the most perfect way. Her face was not done up at all, leaving her cheeks to flush as she looked through the window.

They stared at each other with a strange amount of seriousness for two people that agreed to meet in the first place. Jon softened his face to one of complete awe, because how could he not be when Daenerys was stood there wrapped in a silky dressing gown and staring right at him. Slowly her face softened into an almost embarrassed smile, so they were now just stupidly smiling at each other.

What the fuck were they supposed to do now?

Her hand approached the door and removed the glass that stood between them.

"Are you coming in?"

* * *

Sansa - biggest shipper for anyone getting into a relationship  
Arya - angry and confused by human emotions  
Robb - Just wants to eat  
Jon - An awful texter

Tag yourself, I'm Robb.


	9. Stick

I got to take you home  
We're living in hard times, we're living in hard times  
Baby, you think you know  
I think it's about time, that you're gonna make me whine  
\- BANKS, Stick

Tried my hardest to make this as sexy as a song by BANKS as I'm seeing her in concert tomorrow, but I failed miserably bc i am me.

hope you enjoy, love seeing your reviews guys xoxo

* * *

 _That night: Dany's version_

Daenerys opened the door, all the while smiling.

"I've opened a bottle of wine," Daenerys said in a form of greeting to her best friend before pulling her into a hug.

"And you've dressed up for me!" Missandei replied in a fake tone of awe, as she pulled away from Daenerys. She looked down at her pink pyjamas with a massive cat on the front and pink slippers on her feet, before frowning at Missandei.

She silently led her into the living room where Viserion was sat on the sofa looking very sorry for himself. Daenerys had spent the past two days working at home, so Viserion was probably getting very used to her sitting right by his side for the whole day and only moving to go to the toilet or make some food. He definitely saw Missandei's entrance as an interruption to his one-on-one time with Daenerys.

Missandei went straight for Viserion though to give him some affection and Daenerys could hear him purr – he should be okay with Missandei being here now.

"How has he been doing?" She asked Daenerys, moving to sit next to Viserion on the sofa, as Daenerys poured red wine for them both.

"He's been okay," Drogon took this opportunity to come and rub against Daenerys' leg, seeking the attention he hadn't been receiving due to Viserion's illness. "It was just scary. I've been working from home though to watch him like a hawk."

"Oh," Missandei commented, removing her coat before continuing on, but Daenerys wished she wouldn't continue on. She knew what was probably going to be talked about now. "So you haven't seen Jon since the kiss then?"

Missandei was giving her best bemused smile and Daenerys was narrowing her eyes into little lines. Her cheeks were bound to be flushed pink at this point though, so she most likely wasn't looking as intimidating as she was trying to look.

In a moment of weakness and confusion, Daenerys had made the big mistake of telling Missandei that she had kissed Jon on Wednesday. Missandei obviously thought this was incredibly exciting news, but it definitely wasn't exciting in the slightest – it was mortifying, embarrassing and all the other synonyms that could possibly be used in these circumstances.

"Are we pretending it didn't happen then?" Missandei asked, gratefully receiving the wine, whilst Daenerys took a seat on one of her big armchairs to begin taking gulps from her overfilled wine glass.

"No, but I wish it hadn't." Daenerys lied.

She had wished she hadn't been thinking about the repercussions of them kissing, so that it could have gone on for longer. She had though and now probably nothing would happen between them, because when would she ever be in a moment of weakness like that again?

"Okay," Missandei took a sip of her wine to hide her smile. She definitely wasn't buying that. "Have you spoken to him though?"

"No, I haven't heard from him."

She thought someone like Jon wouldn't let that kiss grow stagnant in the air and would make some form of contact by now, but he hadn't. Although this disappointed her more than she would have liked, she could hardly be surprised by that – she had kissed him and hadn't even given him a second to respond! He might not have even wanted to kiss someone like her.

Missandei clicked her tongue loudly at Daenerys.

"You know you could speak first?"

Of course Daenerys knew that.

However all that drifted between them now was confusion and it wouldn't be cleared up until someone spoke, but Daenerys thought it was best for him to make that move. After all she had kissed him first – she had spoken already as it were.

"I don't know -," Daenerys began when her phone buzzed from her coffee table. Both girls froze, their stare turning from the phone to each other with wide eyes.

What would be the chances that it was who she was hoping it was?

Missandei's eyes glinted with a playful nature and Daenerys snatched up her phone in the fear that Missandei would get there first.

Her mouth gaped open when she saw the text as if she was either full of a cold and unable to breathe properly through her nose or she was just plain stupid.

Probably the latter when it came to Jon.

"It's him," Daenerys mumbled, staring at the three simple words that were so Jon.

"What has he said?" Missandei looked extremely excited at the prospect of this text, as if her talking about him had caused him to text her at this exact time. Although it was strangely timed, so Daenerys was wondering if Missandei perhaps possessed some sort of gift.

"Are you okay?"

Missandei frowned.

"Is that it?" Her frown persisted as Daenerys nodded. "Wow, he's really not a man of many words, is he?"

Daenerys had been thinking exactly the same thing, but with a little less surprise. If Jon had written her a paragraph then she would have been more concerned, but no, she found his short and direct texts somewhat comforting now.

She focused on returning the text, not consulting Missandei as she figured she wouldn't be much help after her reaction to his text. Daenerys could feel her eyes on her the whole time she composed the message though and so it wasn't a surprise that when she rested the phone on her lap, taking a sip of her wine, Missandei was making elaborate hand motions.

"What did you say?"

"I just said that I'm fine, Viserion's fine and asked how he is."

"I doubt he cares very much about your cat." Missandei mused, before remembering that Viserion was currently sat right next to her and so she gave him a pat with a pitying smile. "I care."

"I mean I don't know if he does or -,"

Her phone buzzed once more and this reminded Daenerys that she should lower the volume on her settings, as it was going to get very annoying to see Missandei get excited every time she heard it from across the other side of the room. Daenerys tried to control her posture to not alert Missandei to the fact that she was probably more excited than her friend was at the possibility of another text from Jon.

She slowly sipped on her wine, attempting to take her time before looking at her phone screen, but she couldn't put it off any longer.

"What is he saying?"

The disappointment was probably etched on Daenerys's face as she finished reading the text. It wasn't just short and direct; it was uninviting of further communication.

It was the unspoken rule of dating that if you weren't interested in talking to someone, but didn't know how to politely get out of a conversation then you just answered in short, non-question provoking sentences and under no circumstances did you ask the other person a question.

Why bother texting her if he wasn't actually interested in talking to her? What did this mean? Was he texting her as a sign of being interested in things past that kiss or just as a friendly conversation to make sure things wouldn't be awkward between them when they were both back in work on Monday?

"He's just told me he's having dinner with his family."

Missandei knew the unspoken rule as well and catching on that Daenerys probably would have been content with talking to him further, gave her a warm smile.

"Hey, he's messaging you during a family dinner! He shouldn't be using his phone at the table." Missandei softly said, causing a forced laugh to leave Daenerys.

This whole texting business wasn't the real reason why Daenerys was now upset; it was just the fact that this thing would never stop being complicated unless she put a stop to it completely. She needed to stop thinking about Jon and if she ever did think about him it had to be in a completely professional sense.

"Okay, my phone is staying right here for the rest of the evening," She firmly placed the phone on the little table she had next to her comfy armchair and then moved over to sit cross-legged on the carpet to be nearer her wine. "More wine?"

* * *

An hour or so had passed.

Daenerys and Missandei had practically swapped places with Daenerys now lying face up on the sofa whilst the former lounged in what looked like an uncomfortable position across the armchair.

They had spent most of the last hour catching up on things (avoiding Jon and promotional talk completely), dancing around the living room, arguing over what photos were allowed to go on social media to depict their night and discussing the most recent season of The Great British Bake Off.

"Okay, but if we're going on holiday next year, we have to make sure it's nowhere near Greek food." Missandei started, as if they had been discussing holidays for a while, but they hadn't been.

"Maybe we just don't go to Greece then?" Daenerys responded, unable to hold back her laughter at the stupidity of the last statement.

"This is serious, Dany!" Turning her head to look at Missandei, she could tell that she was being very serious. "You know what happened last time I had Greek food."

"I do remember it extremely clearly, so I promise not to ever take you to Greece." Daenerys smiled over at her quite drunk friend – she was a lightweight.

She reached down to pick up her wine glass to have another sip, but with great disappointment she realized it was empty and with a glance over at the table, she saw that they had finished the bottle. The decision she made then was that she definitely needed another bottle.

"More wine!" Daenerys announced, slowly peeling herself off the sofa and avoiding stepping on any of her cats who decided to sleep right where she could very feasibly step on them.

She tottered off to the kitchen and rummaged through her wine rack to find something to drink. Had they been drinking red wine? Yes, definitely, they had and she only seemed to have one more bottle of red left. Missandei had brought white wine, but neither of them really liked to mix their colours, so she supposed she would have to open her last bottle of red.

And it possessed a cork.

Was she sober enough to successfully deal with this?

After several attempts she felt like she had succeeded in the de-corking of the bottle or whatever it was called and she victoriously she marched back into the living room before freezing at the sight that sat in front of her: Missandei throwing her phone back onto the table.

"Missy! What are you doing? What have you done? Why were you holding my phone?"

Daenerys already feared the worst, but Missandei's strange casual to sheepish smile that she gave did not make her fears soften at all.

"What question would you like me to answer first?"

"What have you done?" Daenerys stormed across the room, grabbed her phone and went straight to the messages. Her breath was caught in her throat as she saw the most recent exchanges.

All she could see was that Jon had finally asked a question, whilst she wasn't in the room, and her own address staring back at her.

"You gave him my address? He could be a murderer!" She didn't believe that for a second, but she felt that directing her panic into anger at Missandei would make her feel better.

"I think he just wants to see you and most probably have sex with you." Missandei calmly stated with a small shrug.

"Why did you do this? How could you even do this? You're usually the worst drunk texter!" She fell to the floor, clutching her wine bottle as it was the only thing she could trust in this moment. A high-pitched whine escaped her. "I don't want him to come around!"

"Yes, you do, but you were never going to do anything about it. He's attractive and you're -,"

"Uh... How do you know that?"

"You know I'm an excellent Facebook stalker… Where are you going?" Daenerys had suddenly stood up during Missandei's sentence and slammed her wine bottle on the table.

"Well, if he is coming over as these texts suggest then I am not meeting him like this." She motioned down at her current pyjamas and slippers situation.

"You look cute!"

Daenerys glared once again at Missandei and a sarcastic smile was returned. She turned away from the smile and raced to her bedroom to find her silkiest nightie and dressing gown.

Well... if he really was going to come all the way to see her then she had to make an effort. Why else would he think Daenerys was inviting him over – if she was inviting him over? Girls didn't just invite boys over in the middle of the night for no reason at all!

Jon couldn't really be coming over though, could he?

He hadn't responded to that text with her address, so maybe he had just ignored it. That would be good, in fact, that would be great! He could ignore it and they could return to their regular professional working life with the undercurrents of sexual tension.

As she changed and looked at her reflection in her standing mirror, she couldn't pretend to herself that there wasn't excitement coursing through her as she considered that Jon could just show up at any time.

She took a few extra minutes to make sure her face didn't look worn out, to brush her hair and spray just a dash of floral perfume before opening her bedroom door to face Missandei again.

"I guess you didn't want to do cute, just drop dead gorgeous." Missandei simply said, a laugh escaping her.

"Too much?" She glanced down, but she was completely covered up by her silky dressing gown... Of course if she removed the dressing gown then there would be a lot more on display. "Anyway, time for you to go."

"What?" Missandei yelped, standing up from the armchair with a confused expression on her face.

"I don't think you should be here if Jon turns up?" She spoke slowly, because her drunk friend might not get it otherwise.

"He could be ages away," Missandei frowned.

"And he could be just outside, so... Look you're the one who invited him here! Let's go." Missandei frowned even more at this, but Daenerys was not budging from the door. "I'm even going to walk you all the way downstairs."

Missandei gave an exaggerated and long farewell to each individual cat before taking her time putting her coat back. Daenerys kept trying to usher her towards the door, but that seemed to prolong the torturous farewell further. At last they were ready until Daenerys remembered something she should do before going downstairs.

She ran over to the coffee table where she had left the wine and poured half a glass in order for her to down it before they left. She returned to Missandei, feeling automatically relaxed.

"Really?" Missandei's mouth had been gaping as she watched what Daenerys did.

"I might not have a chance to drink any more tonight!"

Daenerys lived directly opposite the main lift for her floor, so it was a simple task of exiting her flat and pressing the button. They went down in the lift in silence, but when they got to the lobby, Missandei tugged at Daenerys's arm to stop her leading her towards the door.

"I'm sorry if I was massively interfering..." Missandei began, trailing off as if hoping that Daenerys would tell her she was being silly.

"You were."

" _Oh_ , okay, I just... You've never liked someone before and I could see you shutting down, because liking someone is scary for you, so I knew if nothing happened tonight then nothing would ever happen -,"

"Okay, you know me very well." Daenerys simply interrupted to stop hearing how scarily accurate everything Missandei was saying actually was. "I forgive you."

She squeezed Missandei's hand to let her know all was well.

"Right, I should go before my booty text for your benefit arrives." Daenerys shook her head with a laugh and Missandei began walking towards the door again. Daenerys was close behind to see her off. "Good luck."

"Let me know you've gotten home safely."

"I doubt you'll be looking at your phone for the rest of the night." Missandei replied, scrunching up her nose before blowing a kiss to her.

Daenerys grinned as she watched Missandei walking away, not noticing the man emerging from the shadows until he was basking in the light from the building.

Her body froze, not ready for this moment where it would have to react to Jon being in such close proximity. A big part of her wanted to turn away from his face and run straight up to her flat to not deal with these consequences, but a bigger part of her, of course, wanted to see what would happen that night if she just didn't think about tomorrow for once.

And so she smiled softly at him to begin with, almost embarrassed, as she remembered what she was currently wearing. Soon they were both smiling, _no_ , beaming at each other. That was a good way to know that they were happy with their decision to be stood there right now, and that urged Daenerys to step closer to the door and invite him in.

"Are you coming in?" She was so proud of the way the words left her mouth. It gave off the correct air of not freaking out at all inside, yet still having a tinge of flirtation.

"Oh, yeah, sure," Jon didn't seem to be doing as well with not sounding like he was freaking out, but he still took a confident stride to join her in the lobby. Sliding through the small gap that Daenerys had created by opening the door meant that there wasn't much space for him to pass her without his chest coming into contact with her.

Her head was tilted upwards, staring up at him as he stared down at her. She wanted to kiss him right then and there, but she used all her self-control too pull herself away and silently lead him towards the lifts. Once they were inside and Daenerys pushed the button to her floor, she pushed her back against the wall and dared to look up at him once more.

He was up against the opposite side of the lift and he was looking at her like he hadn't taken his eyes off her this whole time. The intensity of his eyes was impossible to not cause a reaction of blushing, heat underneath the skin and the strong desire to touch him. He began to smile as if he knew he was causing her to feel all these things and Daenerys was weak to smile back when he smiled.

"Stop smiling!" She complained after an unadulterated period of just smiling and staring.

"Why?" He laughed, completely amused at her whining about such a thing.

"It's weird to see you smiling so much." She laughed as well.

"Can't I smile?" He took a step towards her and suddenly it was all serious once more.

He was suddenly centimetres from her and Daenerys felt her breath stop in her throat as she anticipated what would happen next.

What happened next was the lift coming to a halt and opening the doors to bring them out of their current bliss.

Daenerys, flustered, quickly escaped her proximity to Jon by approaching her door. She opened it, her back pushed up to the door as she let Jon past. He finally stopped looking at her, to appreciate her living quarters with his eyes.

"So this is my room... Oh, I mean, my house... My flat." She wanted to slap herself for the words accidentally escaping her. She was clearly just thinking about where she wanted Jon to take her.

Jon didn't seem to really notice her saying anything wrong, but she thought she saw him smiling from the profile look she was getting of him right now. He was still looking around her immaculately kept flat, as if looking for clues about how she lived her life and any insight to her past. She saw his eyes glide over to her wall where a photo of her as a little girl was hanging up.

A purr from one of her cats brought her attention back to her surroundings, instead of just Jon's face.

"Who is this?" Jon asked, as Drogon eyed Jon up, wondering if he was a suitable person to approach. Jon bent his knee and held out his hand towards Drogon. After a stare-off of sorts, Drogon approached and rubbed against Jon's leg.

"Drogon," She finally replied, staring in awe at the way Jon and Drogon were interacting. It was so similar to how her and Jon's relationship had started.

She started off feeling cautious and sketchy about Jon, but now she just wanted to rub herself against Jon as well.

Okay, she needed to calm down.

"And there's a Viserion," Jon said and Daenerys realized she had told him his name in her earlier text. She wondered if he had picked up on the similarity with Viserys when it came to their names.

"Yes, he's probably sleeping." She approached the sofa where Jon was stood near to and peeked over the top to find a sleeping Rhaegal there.

"That's Rhaegal," She announced, as Jon followed her to peer over as well. He was positioned right behind her and she could feel his chest right on her back. "And Viserion." She had found Viserion curled up underneath her coffee table.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry for running away like that on Wednesday." Before anything happened tonight, she had to get those words out. She moved away from him, back towards the wall she had been standing at, as if when she was too close to him she couldn't think straight and get the words out.

"I understand, you probably needed to think about it."

"I haven't thought about anything else." She rested her head against the wall and by the way Jon's eyes diverted from her eyes to her legs, she realized her dressing gown must have flashed him something then.

"Neither have I." He spoke so intensely without a trace of a smile and the anticipation for him to come over to her was going to kill her, but she didn't have to wait long for he was walking over to her purposefully at a slow pace to continue to make her want this more and more.

It didn't matter if this was completely wrong – this was what they both wanted and needed right now.

"But if I kiss you," He leaned in, his hand pushing the wall by her head. He was so tantalizing close that what he was offering up was driving her wild. "Then I won't be able to stop."

"I'm not going to want you to stop, Jon."

Her breath hit his face as she spoke, because he was forever inching closer. Eventually there was no more space to get any closer and his lips were on hers in an automatically passionate affair. The way his lips sank on to hers made it clear that they had both been thinking about this since they tested the waters with the lightest of kisses.

For some reason her hand went immediately to his hair, as if that was the most important thing for her and for Jon the most important thing seemed to be to carefully untie her nightgown and let it slip off her shoulders to reveal her pale clavicle. He lifted his lips from hers to watch her reaction as he let his fingers graze across her neck to clavicle, to her barely there cleavage. The lightest of gasps escaped her and she made sure to bite down hard on his bottom lip when he brought his face back to hers.

She was off the floor in a matter of seconds and her legs were wrapped around his strong body. As soon as his mouth travelled down her throat, she breathlessly told him exactly where she wanted to go.

"Take me to my room – it's to the side here." She waved her arm out pointlessly and the crash of photo frames and a vase were the sounds to confirm that Jon wasn't paying attention to where she was directing him to.

"Sorry, sorry," Jon said, as they fumbled into the room, but Daenerys was nowhere near close to caring about that. Instead she brought her face back down to his.

"Shut up." She didn't know how they made it to her room at all, but eventually they seemed to be by her bed.

When they got to her bed's edge, she slid down his body so her feet could touch the floor once more, but to feel grounded wasn't a sensation she desired right now. She pushed him down on to the bed with an intensity she didn't realise she possessed in her little body. When his eyes didn't falter to leave hers, in fact, they grew hungrier by the second, she straddled him right then and there. Slowly she slithered her skimpy nightgown up her body, revealing her flesh little by little to those hungry eyes.

There was a moment where neither of them moved, her suddenly feeling nervous to have her breasts displayed right in front of his face, but she knew he was staring at her with some sort of awe, as he was growing harder beneath her and he lifted himself up to begin kissing her breasts. His mouth on every part of her body was what she had been craving and so far it was living up to her expectations. She placed her hand beneath her to start stirring on his excitement, but then she realized he was still wearing his shirt and this could simply not stay this way.

She unbuttoned his shirt, which was difficult, when he kept causing pleasurable waves to ride through her as he kissed her skin. She gave up and simply pulled his shirt open with the sudden force she seemed to possess – so what if she ruined his shirt, he had knocked down some priceless ornaments out in her living room.

She could barely see what she was doing, but she could feel his chest and it was defined enough to double her rush to have him inside her – it couldn't come quick enough. She unbuckled his trousers to get things moving along at the exact moment where Jon's hands began exploring lower regions as well. An almost laugh escaped her as she discovered that he had a decent number of inches and she reached over his whole body to get into her bedside table to pick out a condom from the top drawer.

It felt a bit strange to be getting a condom from the collection that Daario had started when he used to visit, but she could barely think about that, or anything for that matter, as by leaning over Jon, she was giving him better access to feel how she wasn't wearing underwear and how wet she was between her thighs. He rolled her body over onto her back so he was on top of her. She frantically pulled his trousers and boxers down to put his condom on. She wrapped her leg to rest on his bum and he kept his mouth on her neck, biting down on her skin.

He entered her and their bodies both inhaled sharply in rhythm with each other. Moans escaped her freely now as he pushed into her further and he wasn't exactly quiet as he moved back and forth either.

When Daenerys had sex it felt like a song was playing and a fantastic, mind blowing song was playing during this. Their bodies were the instruments perfecting the melody that both of them wanted to orchestrate with little surprise beats coming in at times to excite the other, and then they would provide their own vocals for the song. The more pleasurable the experience, the more lyrics would appear in the song.

When a song was so good, you just had to lie on your bed and suck up the greatness before nothing else mattered in the world and you were just floating out of your body to enjoy the waves that rode through you.

And soon she was floating.

* * *

"So..."

"So..."

She lifted her head lightly as the reverberations of his laughter shook her from his chest. She lightly laughed as well as she stared back at him. The awkward laughter subsided and he tucked a bit of her hair behind her ear.

"What is all this now? Is it going -," Daenerys was quick to interrupt him as she was scared of what that question could be. Was he going to ask if this was a start to a relationship? No, because that couldn't work.

"To affect our promotions? No, right? We both still want the job, but it's just a little complicated."

It was true. It was a little complicated now. They both still wanted the promotion and so this night couldn't affect what they wanted. They both worked too hard for that, but, she suddenly thought, what if he won?

"Yeah, I guess it is."

This conversation would only bring a downer on what had just happened; that was clear from the way Jon looked like he was entering his own head instead of just enjoying the moment. Daenerys was slowly following him into the darkness of her own head and so she quickly shook herself out of it.

"Let's not think about it for now anyway. As long as we work well together for the event still, then it's not really a problem for the time being... Anyway, are you going now?" She asked seriously, now lying down next to him, tugging on the blanket she had placed over them both as a post-coital modesty kind of thing.

"What? My trains have stopped for the night already." Jon gave a bemused laugh.

"Oh... it looks like you're going to be homeless for the night then." She continued to speak extremely slowly, adapting the way she used to speak to him before they got themselves into this situation. He stopped smiling and only then she began to laugh. "Jon, I'm joking."

"That seemed like something you would make me do, so I didn't know."

"I'm not evil!" She swatted his chest with her hand, laughing all the while and he joined in as well.

"Yeah, just sleeping with the enemy."

He was still joking around with her, but it sent a chill in Daenerys. He still thought she saw him as an enemy? If she saw him as an enemy then this meant that it was all a game still, right?

She couldn't blame him for still feeling cautious of her. If she was him, she still would as well, but sleeping with him wouldn't benefit her position in the slightest, in fact this was a hindrance to her promotion, so this was all wrong in logic if that's how he felt.

"And so are you, but it's different with me, isn't it?" The tone changed automatically with just that one sentence leaving her lips.

"No." Jon could see her face and tone change, because he violently shook his head.

"You still think I could be playing or-,"

" _No_ , no, Dany, I don't think that anymore." His words were strong in his disagreement with her. He propped his head up with his elbow, his face covering her vision of the rest of the room. She stared at it hard, hoping it would give her the truth and eventually she breathed again and smiled softly.

"Good. I don't know what this is, but it's not that."

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, before moving away to lie back down flat on the bed. As he moved, his chest came into clear focus for the first time that evening.

"What are these?" Her voice was rushed and full of concern. Decorating his chest were heavy lines of past injury; three or four, at least, were marked hard there, not disappearing any day soon.

"Oh, it was from skateboarding when I was younger." He was quite dismissive about them as he said this and so Daenerys felt that maybe she shouldn't be so concerned about them even though they were some scars.

"You used to skateboard?" She decided to play it down like he was doing and so she asked her question with a laugh.

"Not very well as you can see." He laughed too, pointing down to his chest before tugging the blanket to cover himself slightly.

"I would go as far as to say you were an _awful_ skateboarder."

"Yeah, I didn't win any competitions."

"Oh, _no_ , you _entered_ competitions?" She laughed, enjoying how either what she said or her laugh caused his own lips to tug upwards. She had never seen Jon smile this much and she wanted to see it a lot more. "How old were you when this happened?"

"About eleven." Suddenly the smiling stopped, Jon was inside his head again and she didn't know if these scars were as simple as he claimed them to be, but was it really any of her business?

"I was eleven when I used to play the clarinet." Instead of hanging on to a topic that perhaps made Jon uncomfortable, she announced her life as an eleven year old as a big joke.

"You only had one hobby? I would think you were one of those girls with loads of hobbies."

Yes, he was smiling again, so this was all going favourably again.

"Okay... I used to do horse riding and ballet dancing. Oh, and chess!"

"Chess?" He was surprised.

"Can you play?"

"No."

"Good, because it would be very embarrassing for you if I kicked your arse in it."

She shouldn't have brought up chess. Her face was forced into a smiling expression as her head replayed the times Viserys taught her why chess was such an important game, as it was the only game that was close to how real life worked.

She beat him at it once and she knew never to beat him in it again after that.

"I dodged a bullet there."

"Definitely..." She didn't want to discuss chess anymore, just like he didn't want to discuss skateboarding anymore, so now she had to decide whether they now just awkwardly went to sleep or they maybe stayed up a little later.

"Do you want a drink? As you're apparently going to be staying the night."

"Yeah, a glass of water." She sat up properly and pulled the blanket completely off Jon so that she could wrap it around herself. She let out quite a loud giggle at the strangled sounding gasp Jon released as he was completely exposed – Daenerys enjoyed his exposure though.

"Ooh, sorry, I'm having wine, so you'll have to have one too." She was now out of bed, looking down at him, as he struggled to get under her main sheets.

"I was going to say if you don't have water then I'll have wine." She laughed; Jon was becoming funnier and more charming each day. That was perhaps a bad thing, but not something to muse about now.

"Perfect."

She walked out her bedroom door when a thought grasped at her and she decided she needed an answer right at that second. She pulled her head back into the doorway.

"Oh, Jon, do you snore?" She said it like it was the most important question in the world and in that moment, it so completely was.

"I've never had complaints of that?" Jon replied with a snort.

"Just checking."

They spent the rest of the night with a glass of wine each, continuing on trying to find more out about each other without falling for the other, but the more they talked, the more Daenerys found herself losing sight of the fact that they had a promotion to battle each other over.

So she had to wonder, by screwing Jon was she screwing herself over?


	10. Winter Winds

SORRY THIS IS SO LATE OMG

As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts  
Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms  
Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?  
For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt

And my head told my heart  
Let love grow  
But my heart told my head  
This time no

-Mumford & Sons, Winter Winds

* * *

The calendar invite flashed on Jon's screen as soon as he logged into his computer. An invite from Daenerys Targaryen for a meeting at 9:00am till 11:00am with a subject titled 'Event Catch up' to take place in a downstairs conference room. Specifically the one they were in the first time they had their meeting.

He accepted the invite almost instantly whether it was for professional or unprofessional means.

That room was quite a secretive area where they could get to their meeting in peace or… Well, they should focus on the event, but at least half an hour could be spent doing something else. If that was even an option for them – despite him going all the way with Daenerys and them even discussing it afterwards, he felt like he still didn't know exactly where he stood with her.

And the way things were left on Saturday didn't help him out.

* * *

 _Saturday morning, 9:30am_

Jon couldn't believe his luck and that's exactly what it felt like – luck. It wasn't a pre-meditated night to meet up with Dany and from Robb stealing his phone to her being around to respond straightaway, it all felt like a pretty lucky chain of occurrences.

When he had woken up in the flat that belonged to Daenerys on Saturday morning, he didn't know what was going to happen, but he had promised her that he wouldn't really think about it, because he got what she meant by that – the more he thought about the two of them, the more he would want her and that just meant he was going to lose focus on the promotion.

He knew she wouldn't want to lose focus on it either. They should have never done anything, but now that they had, how did he go about this?

If things were simple then he would assume that he could ask her on a date now and try to get closer and closer to her, but they were far from simple, so he had to play it cautiously and follow her lead.

Waking up on Saturday morning, she wasn't lying next to him and he wasn't sure if his phone buzzing or the low hum of music that trailed in from the living room was the cause to him stirring. He rolled over in bed and searched on the floor for his trousers from last night. He reached into the pocket to pull out his phone. It was later than he was expecting it to be.

It was slightly difficult to concentrate on reading his text, as enjoying a glass of wine before bed was never a good idea, but he _had_ enjoyed it. They had talked for a while over their drinks and then had an additional exploration of each other's bodies before drifting off to sleep.

 ** _ROBB:_** _How was your night? ;)_

Jon simply smiled. He would never tell about that almost sacred night with Dany. Unless he was completely bullied into it due to his flushed cheeks, so actually he was most likely to say what had happened if Robb hadn't already guessed and informed both Arya and Sansa about it anyway.

Jon slid his trousers on before finding his shirt near the bottom of the bed. Two buttons were missing from it and he instantly thought back to the smashing noise of a vase or a photo frame from the hallway. Would he have to pay for the damages or should he be purchasing a new vase or whatever it was for her?

As he buttoned up the buttons he could manage on his shirt, he heart the soft meow of a cat. He realized that it was Drogon, the one he interacted with last night. Jon held his hand out and Drogon purred, approaching him to nuzzle against his hand. He had never really thought he was much of a cat person, but he could see why Daenerys was.

Taking a deep breath that did nothing to calm his nerves at seeing Dany again in the flesh, he left the bedroom to follow the soft music. What he saw there was an image he would have never expected – she was in an intricate, yet provocative, position for Yoga. Of course she practiced Yoga – she was so the type who would get up early in the morning and practice Yoga or go for runs.

He turned his eyes upwards, away from her teasing body, as if he hadn't seen her completely naked just a mere few hours earlier. Not wanting to directly disturb her, but also not wanting to remain in this bizarrely awkward situation, he cleared his throat. She pulled herself up and out of her stance, Jon thought she was doing it incredibly slowly on purpose to create some sort of reaction, then she turned around with a small smile.

"I wake up early," She said as way of explanation before turning off the music to force them into silence that had to be filled.

"Based on the time, I'd say I wake up late." She smirked at that, approaching Jon now and that allowed him to see even more clearly the outline of her body in her slinky yoga outfit.

"Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but I was going to pour some water over you if you didn't get up soon." She stopped in front of him, that signature seductive smirk planted on her face. Jon let out a soft laugh.

"Oh, really?" He wondered whether he was allowed to lean over and kiss her, but he didn't know if that's what they were doing now. Like he had agreed in his head when he woke up, he would follow her lead.

"Yes, I'm a busy girl, you know, I've got things to do." She said it in a teasing enough tone, but he wondered if he was massively interfering in her personal life. What did she do at the weekends? He imagined her being a part of his normal weekend of taking Ghost for walks, shopping at the market and cooking a big dinner together or even… Hell, meeting his family.

He imagined how his family would get on with her. Sansa already seemed besotted with her after one glance at her photo, Arya would probably find her as confusing as Jon found her, Rickon would like her, because of her three cats as he was obsessed with animals, Bran would find her intelligent and he could see his aunt and uncle finding her a catch for Jon. Robb… well, he would be Robb about it and express his surprise over Jon managing to keep someone like her.

Imagining Dany being a part of his weekends was definitely a far-fetched dream.

"Yeah… I've got to actually see Robb anyway." He didn't want to suggest he stayed longer if she did actually have things to do, because that rejection would slightly hurt and anyway, he really should see Robb before he departed.

"Robb?" She asked, eyebrows furrowed. He realized that despite them talking so much the night before, he hadn't divulged much, or any, information about his family, because that would lead to more questions and secrets to be revealed to someone he barely knew.

"Oh, he's my cousin." She nodded and they were silent for a moment before Daenerys motioned towards her door.

"Well, I guess you better go then, Jon Snow."

From her pursed lips and complete sexual being, that statement sounded almost like a challenge; you could go or you could stay and have sex? He didn't want to bet on that though and so he nodded and headed towards the door. The more he thought back to this moment, the more convinced he was that he had heard her sigh behind him when he turned away.

"The vase… Can I contribute towards it?" He asked, as he noticed the mess that must have been caused the night before had been tidied away.

"Last night was enough of a contribution." Her voice was laced with undertones of suggestion and almost satisfaction.

Could he be so confident in his ability to think that she was satisfied with his performance the night before? Or was her cumming multiple times clause for him to suspect that she was completely satisfied.

Should he be doing something with this idea? Was she dropping hints? How had he slept with her (twice) and was still struggling with how to handle any situation in relation to the ever mysterious Daenerys.

He turned again, not acting on his will to pick up on what seemed like a hint from her and headed straight to the door. He opened it and felt Daenerys by his side, holding the door open for him. He turned to softly smile at her, which seemed to cause her to beam as well.

"Thank you for last night," He said, immediately regretting the words as soon as they left him. He couldn't have sounded more desperate if he tried. Daenerys simply let out a soft laugh and shook her head.

"Any time…" She paused, still smiling as she got her next words out. "We said we would keep this simple, didn't we?"

He nodded, not sure what else he could say to that. Of course he was already imagining doing things with her that you did when you dated someone, but that seemingly couldn't work. For now anyway. Once this was all over then maybe they could have something else, something better.

Deep down he knew that couldn't be the case though. If she won the promotion, then eventually he would be fine with it. If he won though… Daenerys would never be fine with that, she was determined in ways he could never be. He could see her completely regretting their decision to act so recklessly with each other, so how could this ever work out.

If he was smart he would say they should not keep this simple, in fact it should be nothing at all. This should stay as a one-night stand and be never spoken of again. Instead though…

"Yeah, simple." She seemed to exhale deeply at that, whether she was relieved that he wasn't saying he wanted something more with her or for another reason, he wouldn't know.

She leaned over and pressed her lips against his cheek in a tantalizingly slow method that made him want to lean back in to her lips and kiss her one more time, but he didn't think he could ever stop at just one kiss with her again. He pulled back with a small smile, moving out of the doorway, as he didn't want to kiss her without permission. Unfairly so, she was still the one in charge here, the one he would be following for direction for how this situation needed to unfold.

"See you Monday, Dany."

* * *

 _Monday morning, 8:50am_

Jon was leaving the staff kitchen with two cups of coffee, one for him and one for Dany. He didn't know if she drank from the staff kitchen, she probably just went out to get it from the nearest high-end café, but he thought it would be a nice enough gesture for her to give him one of her stunning smiles.

As he walked past the offices to approach the lifts to head to the conference room, he heard his name being called and it caused him to stop in his tracks and compose himself before turning around to the source of the sound.

"Have you got a sec?" Daario was leaning against the doorframe of his office with his typical Cheshire cat smile on his face. He couldn't look at Daario without thinking about him and Daenerys being together and seeing of how things had progressed between the two of them the previous weekend, he didn't want to imagine her being with Daario.

"I've got a meeting at 9," Jon said, lifting up his hands that held the mugs of coffee as further physical evidence that he was occupied. He didn't want to speak to Daario privately, but he was also his superior, so he couldn't decline his invitation without a suitable excuse.

"It'll just be a minute," Daario confirmed that he was not going to take no for an answer. He turned and headed back into his office before Jon could say anything. He followed through shortly, after a sigh and making sure that his face was composed in a straight-faced expression, so Daario wouldn't know what Jon was thinking of as he stayed in the office with him.

Daario was already sat at his desk, his legs propped up on the table. Jon shut the office door with his foot, as his hands were full before taking a seat in front of Daario.

"I know that you're aware of my relationship with Daenerys. We appreciate your discretion for Daenerys's sake."

Jon was taken aback that firstly Daario was not even attempting small talk and secondly the fact that he even knew that Jon had found out about it. Daenerys hadn't informed him of the fact that she had told Daario about it, only that they were over, but were they over in Daario's eyes? 'My relationship with Daenerys' seemed like it was still ongoing.

How could Jon tell Daario he was wrong without revealing too much? This interaction was going to be pretty much the dictionary definition of awkward.

"It's not for Daenerys, I wouldn't want to be given this for the wrong reasons." Although yes, this was Jon's motive for not telling anyone about Daario and Daenerys, he wanted to speak as blunt as possible, because there should be no indication that both he and Daario had seen Daenerys in a similar way.

"Is that so?" Daario chuckled, as if this was a funny situation, as if Jon wouldn't win. "I can assure you that she would not be winning for the wrong reasons either."

Jon imitated his chuckle, because that sentence coming from Daario was actually quite hilarious to Jon.

"Apologies for believing you might be biased on that front." Jon said, not changing his tone or taking his eyes off Daario. He didn't know what Daario wanted to achieve from this conversation, but he wasn't about to let Daario bring down Jon's defences and give away any information. Daario shifted in his seat uncomfortably before speaking, so Jon knew he was succeeding in making sure he wasn't being intimidated by Daario, in fact it could be working the other way round.

"No, I am completely impartial here." His tone had changed and before continuing on, he shrugged as if he was about to be honest. "Of course I would like her to be promoted, but you definitely have traits that might appear more appealing to Tyrion. He likes an underdog."

Underdog. Jon hated that he had to be referred to as that compared to Daenerys. He didn't think he was and it just made it that if he got the promotion, Daenerys would be more infuriated that she lost to an underdog – taking away any chance of

"I think I'm proving that I'm not one." Jon's tone came off as a little more defensive than he meant it to. Daario began to smile.

"Well, compared with Daenerys – her background and loyalty, you do look like an underdog to any outsider." Daario looked comfortable again, as he could see he was beginning to make Jon feel uncomfortable instead with a conversation about why Daenerys was better than Jon at everything.

"I'm sorry, loyalty? I've been here longer -," Jon started, coming in too quick to stand his ground, making him look offended, which was exactly what he wanted to avoid. Daario seemed to take too much joy in interrupting him.

"Yes, her loyalty to the company, I mean, she turned her own brother in. That's loyalty." He said it with such ease, but Jon was, for lack of a better word, shocked by this news. He didn't know what else to say apart from the obvious.

"What?"

"Oh, come on, its common knowledge at this point." Daario waved a hand dismissively.

Was it common knowledge? How come Jon wasn't aware about it then?

Daenerys had turned Viserys in for what he did to the company.

She had turned her own brother in for embezzlement.

Jon's mind was so slow to process all this information, but once he had then all the ideas that were formed from this information filled his brain at lightning speed.

How could she not be more loyal than Jon when this information was coming out? She had turned her own flesh and blood in for what he did to the company – it wasn't like he had done anything to her, it was the _company_. He tried to picture himself turning in Bran, his uncle, Robb or, arguably his closest family member, Arya in and no, he couldn't. Even if it was something as bad as embezzlement or, worse, murder.

Yet she had turned in her brother, everyone knew they were closer than most couples were to each other. Why would she do that? Jon could only think of one logical reason to that; the company, and ultimately her own ambition and power, were more important to her than any other relationship could be to her. If Viserys was still around then wouldn't he be up for this promotion? He was close enough to the top as you could be and trusted completely by Cersei.

Viserys could have been her huge competition to the top, not Jon, but here he was now – the one thing that stopped her getting that position.

As soon as his mind got to that conclusion, he heartbreakingly knew that he had to get out of this. How had he be so blinded by beauty and her reasoning to think that she was good? She had used Daario, Viserys and almost himself. She was the dangerous woman that Jon had been warned about – an innocent flower who was a serpent underneath, the jailbait and yet, a small, horrible part of him hoped that she could still prove him otherwise.

If that small thought was not proof enough that he was trapped in her spell then what could have been? He had to escape.

"I was out of the loop," Jon eventually replied, watching Daario grow somewhat smug as he had been observing Jon's very visual downward spiral.

"Well, I'm sorry, I said I would only keep a minute of your time – you have a meeting, don't you?" Daario was giving that all too familiar Cheshire Cat grin as he leaned further back in his chair. He was making it clear to Jon that his intentions for this conversation hadn't been so innocent.

And yes, Jon did have a meeting. One that seemed all too important to him now. He left, leaving behind a smug Daario and forgotten cups of coffee.

* * *

Jon's hand was hovering over the meeting room door handle. As soon as he opened that door he would have to keep his emotions capped, he had to cut ties with Daenerys so they were merely professional. It was going to be beyond tough now that he had witnessed the perfect curves of her body and this would be the hardest part, but as long as he stayed strong he could get through it and be fine with just the memories of her smile, her laugh, her lips and that body.

He took a deep breath and then opened the door with one sole purpose. Daenerys was sitting at the other end of the table and everything was set up like that very first meeting they had. Jon knew that this would be even more intense than that meeting. That had been the start and this would be the end.

A smile filled her face, clearly she had been anticipating Jon's arrival. She stood up practically instantly at his entrance and strutted beside the table in order to meet him halfway along. Jon stayed stoic in his expression and his movements in an attempt to show that this was not a social meeting.

"You're late, Jon Snow." She commented and Jon swore that her voice was sultrier than he had remembered. When she reached him, her hands began adjusting his tie. Her face was tilting and reaching closer to his, but Jon stopped her by carefully holding her hands still.

With furrowed eyebrows, she dropped her hands.

"Did you turn your brother in?"

Her face fell in the similar way that it had when he questioned her the first time about herself and Daario, but this time it was more a crumbling of her exterior. He watched as she tried to gather herself, but it seemed to be impossible. He didn't need her next answer to know that it was true.

"That's uh… How would you hear that? That was supposed to be confidential amongst -," Her voice trailed off as a clear idea seemed to form behind her eyes and then anger settled there. "Daario told you?"

Jon simply nodded, giving her time to provide some sort of defence or at least an explanation. She didn't, she simply turned away and stared hard at the ceiling.

"Why would you turn him in?" Her head snapped back to him and he saw her anger had suddenly switched to him completely. His line of questioning was clearly surprising her and Jon wondered how that could be. Obviously he would ask her that. He continued on, in an attempt to show her that he was right for asking. "I would never be able to do that to someone in my family."

"He did a bad thing." The words left her in a fairly collected manner considering the fact that she looked like she wanted to rip Jon's head off.

"You chose the company over your brother. I just think…" He knew this was going to be hard, but seeing her reaction, her shock, over Jon being surprised at her turning in her own brother, made him lose confidence in what he was saying. He wanted her to explain first now more than ever.

"What do you think? Say it." She was spitting the words out at him, getting close to him so he could feel the full wrath of her challenge. For someone so little she could put fear in Jon.

"Daario, Viserys… You would do it all for the company, for increasing your power. What are you planning on doing to me?" Forced into getting his thoughts out by Daenerys allowed him to sound more convinced in his statements than before. _It didn't matter what she said or how she said it_ , he told himself, _she was using him and he needed her to admit it._

"You are being ridiculous. I've already explained about Daario and -,"

"Yes and I was stupid for believing that fucking _story_ , because there's clearly more to it. I'm the only thing now standing in your way." She was antagonizing him to reveal how he truly felt, he knew that, and yet he was rising to it, getting rightfully angry at the unanswered questions and the holes in her story.

She stared at him hard, not showing emotion behind her eyes or in her expression, as he told her the ultimate thing – he thought she was using him. As quick as she was to start eyeballing him, she then loudly groaned and threw her hands up, waving them as if she was defeated.

"Stop, stop, _stop_."

He thought that was her admission. He was right, sadly so, but he was right. She had used Daario, she had seen her brother as competition and now the complicated relationship with Jon was only to make him weak whilst she swooped in to get the promotion.

She leaned against the table, her head in her hands and all he could hear was her hard breathing. He waited silently for her to admit the truth, but still a part of him wanted to take her up in his arms and say that he would rather be oblivious for another day if he could kiss her lips one more time.

"Viserys is a horrible, disgusting person and I hope he rots in prison. You must have known he was terrible and yet you choose to see the worst in me." She practically mumbled this as her head stayed in her hands and Jon realized this wasn't the admission he had been expecting. His face crumpled as she extended her body and revealed her face along with her close to tears eyes. "He was all I had in this world. Our parents didn't pay us much attention, just gave us money and let us run our own lives. I followed Viserys around on the tight leash he put around me. He moulded me into what he wanted, going to the same university, the same work – the same everything. He even helped me buy my flat before the embezzlement – that's why I'm still allowed to have it. He helped me with it on the condition I stay under his thumb."

The way she spoke was spellbinding, like it was just a story, but the way her eyes looked away from Jon, full of suppressed tears, was evidence that every word was true. She shifted, perhaps getting to an uncomfortable part of the story. She took a step away, making it harder for him to see her face.

"It got worse and worse. He was abusive; emotionally, definitely, physically, debatable. Every time he lifted his hand and didn't hit me, it was a blessing." A humourless laugh left her and her words got slower. Perhaps because it was getting to a difficult part or because her voice was getting too choked up to speak at a normal pace anymore. "He controlled my friendships and he's the one who told me to see Daario to better my career. I felt powerless, because without him, surely I would be nothing. Me finding out about the embezzlement was by chance, but it was what I needed at the time to be free. So yes, I turned him in just for the power, for the company."

Her last sentence was completely sarcastic, seemingly bringing her back to the present. She turned around, getting a grip on her emotions as he couldn't see the tears as much in her eyes. Jon could feel nothing other than guilt running through him and the uneasy stare of Daenerys on him now made it impossible for him to say anything.

His mouth was hanging open, as if words were there that he could say; he should have said something. He should have taken her in his arms and told her he was sorry, that he was stupid, that she was more fragile than he ever knew and that upset him, but he couldn't when she was walking towards him, getting right into his face with a twisted smile on her face that suggested she was the one saying this was over and not the other way around, like he had intended on happening.

"That's the most personal, disgusting secret I possess and sadly you're the most undeserving person to listen to it."

Her words cut through him, but all he could do was watch the difference between that smiling mouth and her watery eyes. As if she could see his eyes flickering, she abruptly turned away, her hair kissing his face as she did so, and brought her hands to her eyes as she stormed out the room.

"Dany…"

He weakly called out her name, but he didn't want her to turn back, because there was nothing he could possibly say to her that could make this better. He just did it to say he tried to get her to come back.


	11. Ocean Eyes

Hi, i'm so so sorry for the incredibly slow update - I broke up with my boyfriend towards the end of last year and it's been a struggle especially considering how serious this chapter is.

No fair  
You really know how to make me cry  
when you give me those ocean eyes  
I'm scared  
I've never fallen from quite this high  
¬Ocean Eyes, Billie Eilish (beautiful song and apt for this chapter tbh)

* * *

Daenerys didn't know how she had managed to remain as composed as she had when she left Jon in that hateful meeting room. Her eyes were brimming like a bucket full of water that dared to spill out at any sudden movement, but still she walked at a controlled pace as she exited and walked down the corridor. As soon as she entered her end goal though, which was the female toilets on that floor, her hard grip over her control crumbled away. Tears began to fall quick and hard as she kicked all the toilet doors to make sure nobody was occupying them.

Once she had confirmed she was totally alone, she entered a cubicle and fell against her closed door. A hard gasp escaped her as if to announce the loud, ugly sobbing that was about to leave her body. Daenerys wasn't usually a physical crier and was not one to ever sit on the floor and cry, let alone a toilet cubicle floor, but today, this terrible day, would be an exception.

She was crying because nobody was supposed to find out about this.

She was crying because she was attacked for her decision and that was her biggest fear of anyone finding out – to be made to feel bad for what she did. To have Jon be the one that doubted the reasons why she did what she did made it hurt more. Even though she had been holding back and by no means intentionally doing so, she had started opening herself up to him and this was the slap in the face to let her know that she was wrong to do that.

She was crying because due to being attacked she had to defend herself, she had to relive every single moment all over again.

She was crying because of Viserys.

She was crying because of Jon.

How stupid had she been to think for one little second that he was good and kind – something she felt like she didn't deserve to have to herself, but something she found herself wanting all the same.

That small cubicle contained the crying Daenerys for at least twenty minutes before the sobbing, gut-wrenching, red-eye inducing tears subsided and she was left just staring blankly at the toilet. She slowly eased herself off the toilet floor and headed to the sink to see what damage the crying had done to her face.

She washed her face and then stared at her terrifying reflection. Her lips were puckered and bruised, then her cheeks flushed a terrible shade of red on the backdrop of her pale skin and light hair and her eyes were red and angry. She composed herself and waited for the worse of the swelling to go down.

There was work to do and more importantly a man that begged for her to speak to him with his actions – Daario.

He told Jon and for what? She wanted to scream at him and claw his eyes out, but she also needed to know exactly why he would tell Jon that information. Did he suspect that something was happening between her and Jon? No, had happened between her and Jon. Certainly nothing would be happening between them now.

As soon as the redness left her cheeks, she walked with a ferocious determination to the lifts. Her blood was still pumping at a rate that suggested she was living off a huge adrenaline kick right now. This day had kicked her into overdrive.

When she made it up to the office, she didn't even turn her head to see if Jon was back at his desk, because that would send her over the edge yet again, instead she stormed right to Daario's office and swung open his office door, not checking to see if he was busy or not.

"Daenerys," He commented pointlessly, as she barged in, quickly shutting the door behind her. He seemed flustered and this was exactly the reaction that Daenerys had intended to instil in him. He eased himself slowly off his seat, doing up a button on his blazer as he seemed to try to appear more calm at this interaction. Daenerys, meanwhile, loudly stepped over to his desk, her face painting a picture of a stormy night.

"Do you suddenly want to make sure I don't get the promotion or is this something you've always wanted?" She asked, for once not smoothing over her anger or talking in twisted words to get what she wanted. Despite her face looking like thunder, she kept her body still, as she was very aware of the fact that this office was practically a glass bubble for people to view her.

"My wants have never changed – I've always wanted you to be the same level as me." Daenerys pointed her arm angrily in the direction where Jon sat behind the one wall that was thankfully not made of glass, but Daario continued on calmly before she could spit out her next words. "It's your wants that have changed."

It took Daenerys a second to respond to that. Her arm fell and so did her mouth, attempting to figure out what he meant. Her gut told her what it was, but she would never admit she knew out loud.

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Her voice executed the façade of confusion beautifully. He was beginning to smile now, as if he was going to take joy out of telling her the answer.

"Well, you've pressed the pause button on us for all of _this_ , but it's all because Jon Snow found out our little secret, isn't it?" She furrowed her eyebrows, still pretending that this was a shock to her. Of course his behaviour had all stemmed from jealously. "You two have gotten far too close."

She could have hit the ceiling with his suggestion, because after all this whole fucking mess was due to Daario's original suggestion to be nice to Jon so she could improve her chances at winning. Instead of hitting the ceiling, she took a deep breath and explained that this was his entire fault in a slow, composed manner as if she was talking to a very stupid child.

"You told me I should be friendly with him to help me win this and now it seems that you think otherwise."

" _Friendly_ , yes, I'm fine with friendly." The way he said 'friendly' grated on Daenerys more than what he was actually insinuating.

Of course what he was insinuating wasn't great – she was getting romantic with Jon and Daario thought that was any of his business. Even if he was completely right in his opinion of her just pushing pause on them, they were never exclusive or anywhere near to that for him to have an opinion on who she was friendly with.

"Are you suggesting something else is going on? That I would be so stupid as to sleep with my competition?" She was allowing herself to get angry once more despite the fact that yes, she had been exactly that stupid. "Are you really telling me the grounds for you telling Jon confidential information about me is because you're jealous?"

This seemed to finally get Daario to react in a more human way and the smug smile had been stamped out.

"Although I wouldn't want you getting close with Jon, I didn't actually intend on telling him – it kind of just came out." Daario must have been able to tell he was losing Daenerys here, as she heavily shook her head and turned around. "Come on, he's not going to do anything with that and it's not even that confidential."

That got a snort from Daenerys and for her to turn her head back to the side. "Not that confidential? You think I wouldn't have heard from people if they heard I found out about my brother and then turned him in? It probably took Jon about five seconds to come back to me with that information."

"It's not like you were the very first person to find out."

"What are you talking about?" Daenerys snapped, not knowing what he was talking about, but wanting to know everything about he meant, especially as he looked so flustered that she was calling him out on it.

"You're right; I shouldn't have said it regardless of the reasons." He shrugged, avoiding her question completely.

She figured she could spend her time trying to get that information out of him, but he wouldn't be easy to spill unless she went back to being sexual with him and that was something she could never do again, so if she was going to get any satisfaction out of this conversation and he wasn't going to elaborate on his point, she was going to have to get it another way.

"Did you know that it was my brother who persuaded me to start something with you?" She began, her tongue wetting her lips with determination as she got this out. She couldn't stomach the pretty lie she had been telling him anymore. "And I won't respond very positively to you thinking you have a say in who or who I don't sleep with again, as what I pushed on us was the eject button, not pause."

She finally pushed the glass door open and left without regarding Daario with a second look, but she spent the rest of the day thinking about him. Well, not him, but about what he said.

 _It's not like you were the very first person to find out._

It felt like a cryptic message that she needed to get to the bottom of.

* * *

Upon entrance to her flat in the late evening, after greeting all three cats, her feet directed her to the red wine that had been bought with the intention of being used for a cooking sauce rather than her own personal drinking consumption, but it definitely wasn't turning out that way.

She poured herself a glass and slowly sipped at its contents like it was her medicine for her current mental state. She ran herself a bath as never in her life had she needed relaxation like she did right now. As she watched the bubbles rise to the top, her phone buzzed and she ignored it, like she had been doing every time it buzzed that day.

She hadn't seen Jon in person for the rest of the day, but she had continued to send him professional emails regarding the quickly approaching event that was unbelievably occurring this Friday and so she knew her phone buzzing would most likely be him apologizing or wanting to insult her further or Daario giving his response to her truth telling or Missandei wanting to hear more gossip about Jon and she definitely didn't want to talk to hear from any of these people right now.

When the bubbles reached the top, she removed her dressing gown to submerge her naked body in the almost burning water – extremely hot baths were the only way to do it. She felt the tingling sensation of relaxation throughout her body and she softly sighed, taking her glass of wine to nurse over in her bubbling paradise.

 _It's not like you were the very first person to find out._

Another reason she opted for a bath today was that she needed to allow herself enough time to reflect and stew over that statement. She had already now come to the conclusion of what it meant, but she needed to now decide if she needed the proof of this and how to go about getting proof.

Daenerys had always assumed that she must have been the very first person to find out about Viserys and his illegal actions, as how could somebody know about this and not do anything about it? This had all changed now due to Daario's words, but who could have known?

Daario?

He would have turned Viserys in immediately to make himself look good unless he had been on it as well, but… that didn't seem likely. He would have, hopefully, for his own sake, not been so stupid as to reveal this piece of information to Daenerys or even reveal the truth about her turning in Viserys to Jon.

But Daario perhaps knew who had found out before her. And so she thought that could only mean one option – Management. Someone in Management had found out and done nothing about it. It had to be someone in Management, because Daario was in Management and she couldn't imagine him finding out about someone else in the company knowing about Viserys. It could have been Tyrion, Cersei, Jaime… anyone in a high up position.

Whether it was Daario, someone in Management or just a regular employee, she felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach that her company still had the corruptness living inside it. If she wanted to be promoted, then she needed to know that they weren't corrupt – that wasn't a life she wanted to live anymore, not since she had scraped the corrupt leech that was Viserys off her body. And because this situation was still at the core about Viserys, she had to see it through till the end; she needed to find the evidence.

How did she do that?

She figured Daario knew he had told her too much already and would definitely not be willing to give her any more information with the way she had left things with him. She knew she should have probably thought it through more before telling Daario exactly where he stood with her, but what she had said was still the best part of her very bad day.

The bath felt colder as her mind considered another alternative. Her eyes dared to fill with tears as she thought about what could give her the quickest answer – Viserys himself.

She had never contacted him since she turned him in. She had watched him be arrested whilst he shouted abuse and spat at her and so the word 'bitch' was probably the last word he had spoken to her. She had been at his sentencing, but had sat as far back as possible and she had almost walked out before he was sentenced in the fear that he would be marked as innocent, coming straight for her throat as soon as he was released, but that didn't happen. Her parents remarkably had turned up for his sentencing and she thought they still visited him, but the sentencing was actually the last time she had seen them as well.

Her hand placed the wine down on the side of her bathtub and shakily picked up her phone instead. She had no idea how these things worked – could she ring a number and be put through to him or did she ring to arrange a visit or would she have to speak to her parents in the first time in months to find out how the visiting worked?

As she looked at the screen to decide what she needed to do, the two missed calls from Jon and a message from him simply saying ' _I'm sorry'_ stared back at her. The moments she had to relive today came flooding back and she knew she couldn't speak to Viserys. She would never be able to speak to him again and that's how she wanted it to be. Jon though… she still didn't know what she wanted from that.

She placed her phone back down, ignoring Jon's contact once more. She wouldn't think about him now, because she knew she had a lot of work on her hands. If she couldn't get information from Daario and speaking to Viserys was not an option, she knew she would have to find out herself.

* * *

Despite the disgustingly low day Daenerys had suffered the day before, she had woken up with a determination for the day ahead with what she had tasked herself with. She felt like the literal depiction of a woman on a mission as she walked back into the office Tuesday morning with two coffees in hand from Starbucks. She pretended that Jon was not sitting a simple turn of her head away and walked straight over to her desk, however she soon regretted her decision to firstly go to her desk, because something very odd and upsetting sat on her desk.

A tall and wide vase took up most of her desk surface.

Her walk slowed in shock as she got closer to it. Nobody else was around her desk to supply her with information on who had dropped it off, but only a stupid person in her circumstances would not know who had left the present there. If she did need help with figuring that out though, there was a small envelope stuck to the top of it. She opened it with the expectation that it wouldn't say that much and she was not let down. The simple, cursive writing told her 'For you – Jon'. It was so simple that it was almost maddening, but that maddening feeling at Jon's direct way of speaking was what had got her to lose her control over him in the first place. If she didn't find him so frustrating, would she ever have found him that intriguing to kiss him the way she had? _I don't know and it doesn't matter now,_ she told herself, as she shoved the note in a drawer to not be looked at again.

However the vase itself got her mind running in different directions. The vase seemed expensive in appearance and quality – purple and gold leaf rising from the base to a thick glass rim. She imagined Jon, someone who probably would never spend a sum of money on something like a vase, going to a fancy store and picking this personal gift for Daenerys. Despite his accusations, that single thought of him buying her vase brought the tiniest of smiles to her face.

Jon was yet again proving himself to be a massive distraction for her.

She threw her coat over her chair and headed to the place she had been intending on going to straightaway before the vase: the practically cupboard-sized office that her favourite I.T technician holed herself up in. It was stuck in the space between the kitchen and one of the manager's offices – frighteningly close to the place where she had first kissed Jon.

She knocked at the door to the little office, which was a difficult task whilst holding two cups of coffee, and waited for the greeting that was bound to occur. Daenerys knew that Kit was going to be in, because she seemed to be the only other person in the office who stayed at unreasonable hours.

"Yup," Kit called out and Daenerys pushed her weight against the door to open it. Kit turned to see who it was. "Ah, hey Dany."

Kit was a bizarre young girl, but Daenerys actually found her amusing for the most part when she marched into the office in the morning with a gigantic coffee and with a hood covering most of her features. And she was incredibly useful. Everyone in I.T was useful, but Kit being useful _and_ willing to help was what made her the most valuable.

"I thought you might have downed your daily extra-large coffee by now, so -," Daenerys began innocently enough, as she handed over one of them to an all too keen to accept Kit, but she still eyed Daenerys suspiciously.

"Thanks - what do you want then?" Daenerys looked shocked at it immediately cutting to business talk, but Kit was a straight talker and didn't like to waste time away from her work.

"I am shocked by the accusation, but… you know I'm up for a promotion, right?" Daenerys asked, very willingly steering the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go in. Kit shrugged.

"I might have heard some whisperings of that." Daenerys gave her sweetest smile in the hopes that would help in her ask for help.

"Well, I've been given a task to look at the past financial reports from the past five years and Jon Snow, my competitor, is expected to be doing the same but I've noticed I don't have full access to the finance drive and I doubt Jon does either." Daenerys knew she most likely wouldn't have to be as obvious as to ask the question directly, Kit would know exactly what she was getting at.

"Ah, so that's why you're not putting a formal request in?" Kit asked, shaking her head with a little laugh. This was a positive response for Daenerys and so she leapt at it.

"Yes, but I also think they wouldn't give me access to _everything_." There was silence as Kit pondered over this. Daenerys waited with baited breath until Kit finally nodded.

"If you got promoted you would get access to everything anyway, so no harm in doing it a tad early."

"Really?" Daenerys asked, before realizing she shouldn't sound that surprised. "I mean it wouldn't get you in trouble?"

"Sure, whatever, it'll take a minute and without a formal request from you, I doubt it'll ever be tracked." Daenerys smiled, as Kit explained.

"Thank you, I owe you."

"Yeah, yeah, thanks for the coffee." Kit waved dismissively, so clearly it was the end of the conversation.

And that was that. Step one of her so-called mission was complete.

She needed Kit to think that there was some sort of task for her to look at anything financial – there wasn't.

She needed Kit to think the reason she couldn't put in a formal request was because she was merely cheating in her competition, because Jon also didn't have access – that wasn't the case.

She needed Kit to think that by being granted this access, her chances for promotion would be increased and so it wouldn't matter if she got the access all the managers had a few weeks early – definitely not the case.

Step two would be going through the whole financial drive that she would now have unlimited access to and find anything that suggested someone else might have found out about his little illegal activity or had a part in it.

Hopefully she wouldn't need a part three and she would find out everything she needed to know after step two.

She went to the kitchen to make the most of the fact that most people weren't actually in the office yet and so it was quiet, to make herself a little natural yoghurt and fruit ensemble. She placed her coffee on the counter and began collecting her things out of the work fridge when the familiar voice came from behind her.

"Did you see the vase?" Daenerys froze, her breath stuck, not wanting to look back at those eyes that depicted the stormy seas, because she didn't want to go swimming right now or possibly ever again.

His body appeared at the side now, his arm leaning on the counter. She didn't want to be able to see any part of him.

"It was unnecessary." She simply responded, sounding cold as if she didn't sound cold then she would sound upset, hurt and betrayed – all things she couldn't sound in front of Jon again. She didn't have to turn to him to know that he was staring at the side of her face with intent.

"I wanted to say sorry, but I don't know how to say sorry to someone like you." A laugh filled with no happiness left him and either the words or that laugh caused her to finally turn to him, forgetting about her breakfast, as staring at him with bewilderment seemed more vital right now.

"Someone like me?"

Was he suggesting again that she was horrible and stuck up, like he had done before by saying she was different from others? Did he want to enrage her further?

"No, I –," His face looked startled, like it wasn't what he wanted to say. He licked his lips, as he tried to continue on. "I've just never met someone like you before. In a good way."

Her mouth parted slightly as his words washed over her. She had felt that she was someone different in a bad way and Jon had usually made her feel that way, but now… now he saw her as something different in a good way. She didn't want that simple sentence to affect her the way it was.

Jon huffed out a deep breath before continuing on.

"I'm so sorry, Dany, for what I've done and what you've been through. I should have gone about it completely differently, I just obviously had bigger trust issues with you than I -,"

"Yes. Well, thank you for your apology." Daenerys couldn't hear any more of what he had to say and so she had to interrupt him.

It made it more difficult to hear his lovely words as she couldn't do this right now – it was completely the wrong time. Everything had changed since the day before; her priorities had to be different for now. Jon Snow couldn't come and distract her further, but he was looking at her earnestly with a lot more to say to change her mind.

"I know I was a twat, I know now that there is so much more to you to know and I want to find it out without prejudices or the ideas I used to have about you… If I can."

"Uhm…" It was such an undignified sound for her to make. Daenerys never hummed or uhmed her way through a sentence, but she was stalling; she didn't want to get her next words out even though it was the right thing to do. "Like I said, thank you for your apology and I forgive you. I know I would have probably jumped to the same conclusion."

His face visibly relaxed despite it being painfully obvious that she wasn't done there.

"I shouldn't have though." He said, his apologetic eyes not backing down from this. She let out a little hopeless sigh.

" _We_ shouldn't have. This was all a big mistake and thankfully we're realising this sooner rather than later. We should remain professional from this point on."

"I – no, what? I don't want that." He was shaking his head violently at that idea of them not doing anything else and Daenerys had to bite her tongue, because this was the first time Jon had come close to telling her what he wanted with all this and he had to pick now to display that? When she was firmly telling him no?

She couldn't risk discussing this further, because she would change her mind back. She raced through the reminders for why she was doing this: he didn't really want her, the complicated her with a horrible backstory, she couldn't have the distraction of him and she couldn't have a relationship! And so she instead started talking about something entirely different.

"I don't think I need to reschedule that meeting that we were supposed to have yesterday as I think we know what we're doing with our separate, but uh… on Friday we should make sure our schedules are completely free as we'll have to check everything is ready at the venue and things like -,"

"Dany, come on, this is ridiculous. We need to talk about this more." He put his hand on top of hers that was still resting on top of the yoghurt. Her skin let out a jolt of electricity and she snatched it away before her body reacted in a completely illogical, physical manner.

"No, we don't. That's exactly what I don't need. _Please_."

She hurriedly started putting her things back in the fridge and gave him a final look that was cold – the emotion washed out of every pore once more.

"If you need to talk about the event or have any issues then please contact me and I will do the same with you."

She turned away then and walked back to her desk in a careful manner.

She didn't need to have Jon in her head right now; he would be taking up valuable space for her mission to find out what had happened, so she cleared her thoughts of him. She replaced his voice telling her that he never met somebody like her with the work that she now had to do.


	12. Oceans

It feels like there's oceans  
Between me and you once again  
We hide our emotions  
Under the surface and tryin' to pretend

-Oceans, Seafret

 _Jon Snow was a fucking idiot._

And he fucking knew it too.

He especially knew it as he approached the arm folded Arya Stark sat at the bar with a half-empty pint. She looked like she wanted to punch him in the face. Her eyes did not waver from his direction and he started walking quicker to escape her ferocious beady eyes.

"You don't look -," Jon was cut off by Arya actually punching him in the arm. He winced as he lowered himself into the seat next to her. "God, Arya… Do you feel better?"

She didn't look better, but after a brief silence as she continued to stare with furrowed eyebrows and a generally beastly expression, she softened (as much as Arya could soften) and gave a nod of her head, as if she was even surprised by her change in emotions.

"Yeah, I actually do."

"Should I even dare ask what I've done wrong?" He asked, cautiously.

Cautious… That was how Jon felt he now had to be this week after his awful start of being a gigantic, disgusting, enormous and vile asshole. Well, that was his interpretation of how he had acted and he was sure quite a few people would agree with him. He seemed to have caused unrepairable damage to his barely even started relations with Daenerys and now he had pissed off Arya for a reason unbeknownst to him.

"You've been ignoring me." Arya said bluntly, taking another swig of her pint. Jon looked for a bartender's attention as he realised he would probably need it if Arya was only just getting started with her annoyance.

"I haven't been intentionally doing so." Jon defended himself, still trying to eye one of the bartenders.

" _Bullshit_. You've been less responsive than usual – Sansa, Robb, Mum and Dad say the same and -,"

"Have you been discussing this with _all_ the family?" Jon asked, practically waving his hand across the bar as he most definitely needed a beer now. Arya continued steamrolling on with her original dialogue.

"And I practically had to force you here tonight. It's my fucking freshers week, I should be the one who's mega busy." She continued to glare at him, now waiting for his rebuttal to her opening statement on his recent behaviour.

Finally a bartender came to his aid and he signalled for a pint of Carling.

"Oh, you can get me another too. Drinks are so fucking expensive here." Arya complained and with a sigh, Jon asked for another pint for her as she tried to down the remainder of her drink.

"I know, I know, but I have been busy," Jon began, taking out his card for contactless payment. Arya looked on the verge of saying something else, so Jon quickly carried on with what he wanted to say. "But… you know I've been busy with the event tomorrow and I wanted to ask if you would come. It'll be fancy, but free drinks all night."

Arya had been shaking her head adamantly as soon as he started discussing the event, but as soon as he said 'drinks' she paused to think, just as Jon thought she would.

"Uh no, Jon, you know I'm not the kind of twat who can stand at one of these things. Ask Sansa." Arya suggested, nudging Jon's arm, showing that she perhaps wasn't completely angry with him. Jon let out a soft chuckle at her suggesting Sansa.

"Already have, I knew you'd say no." Arya laughed now, taking her new pint as she had successfully downed the other one.

" _But_ ," She started and Jon dramatically groaned, he had thought this was over with by now. "I've seen you fucking busy before, Jon, and you're not usually like this."

"This has been more stressful."

Of course this had been more stressful than anything in his life, because he had never had the opportunity of a lifetime that he could only get if he beat a girl that he… Well, that he had slept with and then assumed the worst in, so hurt her more than he would have ever intended to do. It had been a pretty fucking stressful few weeks.

If he was honest with himself then he would say the job opportunity had actually been less stressful this week, because he didn't feel like he cared as much anymore… Well, he still cared, but some of his care was now tied up with Daenerys and so he couldn't care about the promotion as much anymore.

"Robb thinks it might have something to do with that Daniella girl, because you slept with her." Arya said matter-of-factly and Jon let out a frustrated sigh at all the things wrong with the sentence and the one thing that was right: it was _definitely_ to do with that.

" _Daenerys_. And I really like the fact that all the Starks seem to be discussing me at the moment." He took a sip of his pint, the only good thing about this goddamn awful conversation at the moment.

"Come off it, only a little bit! And you didn't say that it isn't about her, so I'm thinking that's a yes." She was looking at him expectantly, as if he was going to suddenly open up and tell her everything that had happened. "Come on, I'm not a good listener, but I'll definitely tell you if you're being a bastard and what you fucking need to do."

He leant his elbow against the bar counter, resting his head in his hand as he considered it. There was perhaps no harm in telling Arya what had transpired since he last saw her; after all she was one of the people in the whole world that he was closest to and despite her confession of not being a good listener, she could be when she wanted to be. Jon had been holding it in all week, only complaining to Ghost about it and then spending the rest of the time concentrating on his work, because that was all there was to do right now and the only way to talk to Daenerys at all.

"Okay," He finally said, lifting his head to recount the story that had been Jon and Daenerys this week, deciding to skip across the whole sex part of it. "So… what Robb said was, yes, correct, but Monday some manager, Daario, who she was actually sleeping with before," Jon noted how confused Arya already looked by this story. "Well, he told me that her brother, who used to work at the company and is in jail for taking money from the company, was actually turned in by her."

Arya couldn't scrunch up her face more even if she tried. She looked beyond confused by what was happening at Jon's firm and he hadn't even got to the part of the story where he had fucked things up.

"And that was the big part of the story?" Arya asked, her voice matching the confusion she was displaying in her facial expression.

"No, obviously I had to speak to her about it, but I did for… all the wrong reasons. I guess I still had it in my head that she was playing games and trying to claw her way to the top. I thought she had turned in Viserys to show her devotion to the company – it sounds stupid now…" Arya looked even more confused, which Jon had previously thought was not possible, but she did and so he went back in his story to clarify. "What I mean by playing games is she was sleeping with her superior and she had tried playing mind games with me. That's not her though, I know that now."

"Sounds like it might be too late." Arya mumbled under her breath, before drinking her pint. Jon didn't know why he let himself be so shocked by that statement.

" _Thanks_ … Anyway I accused her of turning her brother in to show she put the company in front of her family, but… I was completely wrong – her brother completely deserved to be put away, _before_ he even stole from the company."

"So what happened then after you were a twat?" Arya asked, before giving an awkward, slightly apologetic shrug for her word choice.

"Well," He gave a humourless laugh. "I hurt her. I spent a long time apologising and she says she forgives me, but she just wants to be professional with me. I don't want that at all, but… I don't think she'll change her mind."

There was a silence between them, as Arya seemed to be analysing the situation, but she quickly turned to him, her tiny face full of determination. He readied himself for the attack that was bound to be thrown his way.

"Well, it sounds like you were a massive twat -,"

"As you've stated." Jon replied through gritted teeth.

"Felt like something I needed to restate. Anyway, what did you say when she said she wanted things to be professional?"

What had he said? He had to wrack his brain to remember the pitiful attempt he had made of trying to get it through to her that he was, yes, an idiot, but an idiot who had learnt from his misjudgement and wanted to make it right by taking her on a date or something.

"Uh… I said I didn't want that, but she wouldn't really let me speak."

And she hadn't really let him speak a whole lot more for the rest of the week. Of course they had been professional, like she had said they could be, but that seemed to be limited to email chains, texts (only about the subject matter at hand – the event tomorrow), courteous smiles in the office and the simple greeting of 'Jon' and 'Daenerys' when they were in any group meeting together.

"Well, you've got to tell her and show her that you were a stupid twat… Fucking hell, Jon, you've got at least put a little fight into it."

"It's uh… complicated."

Well, that was what Daenerys kept saying it was and he knew it was too, which was why he originally wanted to just follow her lead as she looked like she knew what she was doing, but now he felt like what he wanted with Daenerys was actually pretty fucking simple.

"Yeah, I gathered. I know fuck all about relationships, but even I know you should be doing more." Jon didn't reply, but Arya clearly felt like he should be. "So fucking talk to her."

Arya was obviously right. He knew he should be doing more, but he just didn't want to push it so much that they weren't even pretending to be professional and courteous with each other – he didn't want to go back to when she hated him way back before this promotion.

Was it worth it to just try harder if he could risk Daenerys turning him down in an even more horrible way?

It was definitely worth pretending to Arya that he was completely sold on the idea anyway.

"All right, Jesus, do you save all your swearing for when you're with me?" She didn't respond, but just hit his arm again.

"And Daario sounds like a right dick." She mused, after a short silence brewed between them.

"He is."

Jon was all too happy to agree with that sentiment.

Although he still had no fucking clue why Daario told him all that – obviously to ruin any relations Jon and Dany might have, but how did he know there was anything there to ruin?

* * *

They finished off another pint before Arya announced that she was pretty much using Jon as a pre-drinking session before she headed off to another Freshers party. He could have been offended by it, but he was happy that Arya seemed to actually be enjoying her time in London so far… despite the expensive drinks, difficult to understand accent and that nobody seemed as welcoming as they were up North.

"Thanks for meeting up with me." She commented, as they got outside the pub.

"Did I have a choice?" Jon asked, a laugh escaping him as he asked it.

"Absolutely not. I meant all my physical threats against you." Arya replied, grinning at him now, clearly showing she had forgiven him of all his shortcomings from the past week. "But seriously, I hope it all goes well tomorrow."

"You and me both."

But he actually wasn't so sure how much he hoped it all went tomorrow. He knew that he wanted it to go well for Daenerys and he must have still wanted it go well for him, but his head was filled with the stuff with Daenerys and so the event was surprisingly not at the top of his priorities.

"And talk to her." Arya said with a pointed finger in Jon's direction, as if she could read his mind. He merely gave a reluctant nod before outstretching his arms to encapsulate Arya in a tight bear hug.

"Have a good time tonight." He said as a goodbye, both of them smiling widely at each other as they went their separate ways.

"I'll see you Sunday, right?" Arya said as her version of goodbye and Jon simply nodded.

They had facetimed Sansa during their drinking session and agreed to have dinner around Jon's on Sunday basically so that Arya could get her first home-cooked meal in a week, to hear all about the event and to, most importantly, find out from Sansa what Daenerys was like.

He wished he could take Arya all the way to the party, but he knew she would be kicking and screaming all the way if he made her feel any less independent than she was, so he let her navigate London to get there and after all it was only 9PM and she had Google maps.

Her advice of talking to Dany was sitting with him and he knew because he had alcohol in his system now that he was obviously going to make contact with her, because Arya was right – he had to fight a little bit harder than he had.

He didn't want the awkward professionalism that lingered there and he didn't have to accept the fact that Dany simply wanted them to have nothing to do with each other.

It was bullshit what she was saying about this all being a mistake between them, because of this whole promotion; soon that would be over with and would they just be left with this fake professionalism still?

He reached for his phone from his thick grey coat and was shocked that he didn't actually have to make contact with her. Staring up at him was one missed call from her and a message saying:

 ** _Office. Now._**

* * *

He walked out of the lift on the floor that he and Daenerys worked on. This was the most impulsive thing he had done since he went to her flat the weekend before. He had just replied to her text with what seemed to be a word he used far too frequently in his texts to her: 'Okay'. Then he rushed over her as if his life depended on it. His mind didn't even run through what this could be about – he just knew that Daenerys wanted to speak to him and that was enough.

But as he stood in the lift he realised that due to the event being tomorrow this was probably, almost definitely just about work.

And as he stood in the middle of the office, not seeing her at her desk or at his, he figured this was all an elaborate revenge prank, but then his eye caught the lights on in the small office that once belonged to one of the old Finance Directors… or something like that, he couldn't really remember, but he did remember that it was the office where Daenerys had met him to first apologize and to shake his hand.

He saw her little figure sat on the floor and realised this would now be the office where he apologized to her yet again.

He approached the door cautiously, noticing as he got closer how she was surrounded by literally hundreds of papers sprawled across the entire floor.

"What the -," He said, bringing her attention to him all of a sudden. She looked confused for a mere second as to why he was there, but then she looked almost manic. He wondered how long she had been sat on that office floor, looking at these papers, whatever they were, and he realised then that this was probably not about work.

She stood up in a hurry, three sheets of paper scrunched up in her hands and then before he could even process what was happening, she thrusted them into Jon's chest and he weakly took them from her. As soon as he took the pages, she let go of her hold on them and turned wide-eyed away from him to begin pacing the floor.

"Read them." She bit out, her hands gripping her hair as she continued to pace.

He was scared to look at the pages. He was scared that it would be something that made her angry at him, but he hadn't done anything. Apart from the absolutely terrible thing he had already done and she knew about that – he couldn't have done something worse than that.

With the confidence that it couldn't be about him, he straightened the pages out and read them. He was confused – it looked like a payment out to a vendor or something. How would this get Daenerys so angry?

"Payments to a company called… Quality Produce?" He asked with the confusion apparent in his voice. He was still staring at the paper, willing it to make sense to him and then he saw it and his head shot up. Daenerys had stopped pacing and just stared at him with her wide eyes.

Right there it said approved by Viserys Targaryen and so he knew this must have been the way that he embezzled.

"I knew that's what I was looking for, but I noticed something else." She approached him and pointed out the other authorising signature on the document. "All the other payments he signed off on have different managers, but the same one is on every one of these… It can't have been something overlooked."

He glanced between the violet pools of Dany's eyes and her hand pointing right at that other authorising signature: Cersei Lannister.

"She knew?" Jon asked stupidly, because there was nothing else left to ask.

"Jon, she must have!" She began pacing again. "I confronted Daario about what he told you and he said that I wasn't the first to know and I think this is what he meant, so Cersei knew and must have been benefitting somehow? Maybe… maybe it was money she could hide away somewhere without taxes or maybe she was sleeping with him or… or something!"

Jon stopped looking at the sheets and just stared at the beautiful emotional mess that was Daenerys Targaryen right now. He had only ever seen her in complete control of herself, but now she was losing it.

He did the only thing he could think of and blocked her path of pacing and took her in his arms. She seemed to shake slightly in surprise, but more to his surprise, her arms fell limply to her side and she let Jon hug her. Her head rested perfectly against his chest and her breathing eventually seemed to be returning to normal. For a second there was peace there between them, but only for a second. She raised her head once more to look up at him, her arms still slightly tangled up in his.

"If Daario knew then so did others, Jon. What do you think I should do? Or should I just not do anything? I think I should talk to Tyrion, but…" Her voice trailed off, she sounded as lost as she looked and Jon was sort of at a loss as well.

He would go to Tyrion too. After all he was the person in charge at the moment and unless Daario found out about this in a different way then Tyrion must have been one of the first to know – he was related to Cersei after all.

Jon was more at a loss to why, after everything that happened between them, she had asked him to come here? Her inviting him had to prove that they could never just be merely professional again, right?

And that possibility was always going to be more important than his dead CEO putting money aside with Dany's brother.

"Why have you asked me here?"

He had to get straight to the point; he always had to do that.

Daenerys had clearly still been expecting him to tell her what she should be doing with this information and so her big eyes blinked slowly at his new question and she looked as if her brain was working in overdrive to come up with an answer.

"Huh? You know, although I wish you didn't, about all of this and I do trust your opinion, so who else would I ask to advise me on what I should do with this?" Her voice was quiet and Jon didn't know if that was more hope that she was throwing at him or if he was reading far too much into it.

"Right, but just on a professional level?" He asked, taking it as hopeful.

"You think this is a good time to be discussing this?" Her voice had a tinge of anger and desperation in it, forcing him to re-evaluate this conversation.

No, it wasn't. Not for Dany and as he was the one who had been in the wrong he had to respect that.

Knowing where he stood with her might have been far more important to him than what had happened in the past with her brother, but it wasn't the same for her. _He_ wasn't as important as what went on with her brother to Dany.

So he knew that this wasn't what she needed – to be harassed by him with his questioning about something she seemingly didn't want at all and so he decided to be what she needed, a supportive hand.

And so with a sigh, he dropped the whole conversation and everything he could have said, but shouldn't.

"Tyrion genuinely doesn't seem like his siblings and I think he's the best person to take this to, but what do you want from this?" He asked, noticing the relief in Dany's face as he went back to this topic. It was her turn to sigh and turn away from him, to stare at the mess of papers on the office floor.

"All I wanted to find out was who knew before me, but now I'm not so sure. This information means the company I've been working for since I graduated has been completely corrupt all along and I don't want that – none of this would have been worth it. I mean the only reason I'm here is because Viserys got me in with a job and I've just stayed… maybe because that was easier than actually going out by myself without a Viserys and without a Daario helping me along the way." She gave a completely humourless laugh as she turned back to Jon with those fiery eyes. "Kind of sad that men have ruled my career for me."

"You've got to this stage by yourself."

She gave him the briefest of smiles as if to say, 'Don't joke about this' and that was probably the moment that, if Jon looked back on all his moments with Daenerys, he would say he knew that she was the most wonderful woman he had ever met. He couldn't unsee it from that point and couldn't want anything less than a relationship with her.

And that was absolutely ridiculous though, because he wasn't one to fall into these things quickly, yet here he was staring at Daenerys with adoration as she continued to obliviously stare at him.

"It doesn't feel like I've achieved a whole much though. These past few weeks have made me realise that: this revelation, Daario, _you_ … For the first time I'm actually uncertain about things."

He didn't want to see her like this, because she did deserve that promotion and sometimes he thought she deserved it more than he did, but this was so much more than this. He got where she was coming from, because he couldn't work for a company that just accepted corruptness like this – if he had found out about this when Cersei was still in charge then he would be handing his notice in.

"Look… if you talk to Tyrion and you think this company is still just as corrupt then I'll be walking out with you if that's what you're saying." He walked closer to her as he said all this and delicately stroked a finger along her clenched fist; as if by magic she then opened her hand and looked remarkably relaxed by that action.

"Okay." She smiled at him for longer now and didn't take her eyes off him as if she was seeing him in a new light and Jon hoped for his sake that she was.

"We've got a really long day tomorrow, so I can tidy this up and you can get some sleep." He smiled back at her and before he got too distracted by her, he got on his knees and started filing the sheets, unsure where exactly he was going to put them all.

"Jon, thank you." She knelt down beside him for the briefest of moments. Her hand went to rest on top of his, definitely distracting him from sorting the sheets out. "I do forgive you; you're one of the good guys."

So that night Jon was realising that he wanted to be with Daenerys, and nobody else, and Daenerys was seemingly realising that he was one of the good guys.

To Jon, that was everything. He knew, as he watched her get her coat and leave the room in silence, that he would be replaying that very moment in his head for the rest of the night.


	13. Dress

'Our secret moments in a crowded room,  
They got no idea about me and you...  
All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation  
My hands are shaking from holding back from you...  
ONLY BOUGHT THIS DRESS SO YOU COULD TAKE IT OFF'  
\- Dress, Taylor Swift

(is it obvious I love this song? No, then read further)

Dress is the red one seen here: . /litanyfever/jonerys-draw-your-swords/

* * *

 _DAENERYS - Part I_

Daenerys surveyed the room with a critical eye, because despite her current situation, she still was a perfectionist at her very core and needed the night to run perfectly for that reason alone. Everything did seem perfect though. She knew her and Jon had done a fantastic job on their task and that it should be a difficult decision for Tyrion to make regarding who should be getting the promotion, but the promotion was located in the back seat of her brain right now – she had so much to deal with first.

"So, what do you think?" The voice set a small smile on her face despite herself. She tried her best to hide that smile as she turned to face Jon, who had entered in the event space behind her, but the image was so shocking that it caused her not to smile, but to freeze with her mouth slightly agape.

He was wearing a tux. Jon Snow was wearing a tux. Jon Snow had also done something to his hair to tame it from its usually wild appearance. It was not an exaggeration to say that she gulped slightly as her eyes took in his whole being.

She did slowly smile as she saw that he had not yet done up his bow tie, perhaps because he didn't know how to do it, so in that instant he went from a strange foreigner back to the Jon she had grown fond of.

"Do you mean of you or the venue?" This caused Jon to smirk, something she didn't see him do very often, but something she enjoyed seeing – especially on this dapper man who stood before her.

"The venue, but you can comment on either." He replied, standing straight. Daenerys took a cautious step forward; she felt like she had to be cautious as it had been a while since they had flirted at all and she wasn't sure why the hell she was deciding on doing it now. She had decided to be careful with her heart with what had happened, but now here she was wanting to… in simple terms… ravage him whole.

"Well, the room is set, name cards are out, the music has been selected, everything has been printed out accurately and the canapes taste delicious, so I think we're ready." She cleared her throat before continuing on. "You, on the other hand, do not look ready yet."

She took a final confident stride to begin doing up his bow tie, avoiding his eyes as she did so, as that would reveal that she wasn't quite so confident about doing this at all. He remained completely still as she fiddled with his tie, but she was so close to him that she could feel his chest vibrate before he actually spoke.

"I was considering using a clip-on one, but I knew you wouldn't approve of that." Her eyes darted up to his face as he said this, but they quickly went back down to his tie as he had been staring at her quite intensely.

"All done." She said, adjusting his bow slightly to make sure it was even. "I guess I should go back to the office and get ready myself."

Daenerys had left her dress in the office and all her equipment required to get her party ready. She had left it there and not taken it with her to the venue like Jon had, because she needed a reason to go back and not just the real reason why she needed to go there – speak to Tyrion.

She needed to be back here in just over an hour in order to make sure she was there before the first guest arrived – it would be a tight schedule, so she had to leave now if she wanted that talk with Tyrion.

She smiled, finally giving Jon eye contact, but just as she pulled herself away from him, he held on to her hands to keep them at his bowtie. Although it was the lightest of touches, he had her paralysed.

"Are you going to be -,"

"Did you want to test the lighting in here?" Dany knew that annoying voice belonged to Laura, their events coordinator, so she didn't even need to turn around.

She thankfully knew what Jon would have asked her – if she was going to speak to Tyrion – and so she gave him a curt nod, before finally pulling away from Jon's captivating hold and directing her attention to Laura.

"Impeccable timing as always. I will leave you in Jon's capable hands." Laura looked slightly thrilled by that situation and so Daenerys left her with a glare she hoped was cold enough to dampen Laura's spirits.

She put on her trench coat and left without giving Jon a second look. The lift was already at their floor and so she got in with ease, pressing the button to demand the doors to shut, but they didn't shut immediately; Jon's hand blocked them closing and it felt like the two of them were staring at each other for the longest amount of time before Jon's gruff voice broke the silence.

"Let me know how everything goes, I meant what I said."

It took Dany a second to remember what he _had_ said, because she had pretty much lost her mind the night before and everything was hazy from that encounter with Jon. He had said he would walk right out with her if it turned out that the company was still corrupt.

"Okay." She simply said, giving him an unsure half-smile, but this seemed to appease him enough and so he released the door for it to shut and stop them staring so intensely at each other.

* * *

Of course Tyrion wasn't in the office when she got there.

However after much fake cooing and laughing with his PA, she discovered that he had scheduled some time in the office before he would arrive to the party late to make a little speech and such – the speech had been arranged all along, as it was only right to have the stand-in CEO making a speech about how passionate they were about their corporate social responsibility and blah blah blah… all of that spiel. Daenerys was a little more concerned by the fact that he was intending on arriving late to the event? How late? This meant she would be late then?

She decided that she would just have to get herself ready first and then just hope that Tyrion would arrive soon enough that she didn't completely abandon the event that was really the deal breaker of her getting a promotion or not.

So now she stood in the women toilets, staring at her reflection to make sure she looked presentable.

Daenerys always picked her outfits off a pale colour palette, especially for anything corporate, but tonight was different; she wore the colour of fresh blood in the form of a silk crepe de chine dress pulled over her shape in the most flattering of ways. The boning in the chest of the dress pressed against her in not the most comfortable of ways, but in a way to let her know that it was doing its job. Her blonde hair seemed to scream out more dramatically against the vibrant red shade that laced its way down her body. The smallest of smiles crept onto her face as she continued to stare at her reflection as her hands smoothed over every curve of her body.

She would be lying if she said that she didn't wish someone else's hands were running over her dress right at this moment, but it was something she didn't really want to admit considering everything that had happened in that respect. Although maybe she had picked out this specific dress in order to cause some sort of punishment that he wasn't able to touch her when she looked like this, but if she caused that sort of reaction in him then wouldn't it be causing punishment to herself more?

Because then all she would want was him to push her up against a wall in a private room at the event (there was a cloakroom that would be perfect for that – she had checked… for no particular reason) and creep his hand up her thigh to –

"Ugh!"

She let out a loud groan and removed her hands from her dress, because clearly that action was just causing her to think about stupid Jon Snow even more. She needed to get some more self-control, but until she did that, at least she was able to focus on the actual matter at hand instead of her sick obsession with having Jon's body pressed up against her.

Yup, she needed to stop thinking about Jon.

She put on the finishing touch of a deep red lipstick and then began putting together her things. She had been forty-five minutes already and she dreaded checking her phone to see if Jon had contacted her to see why she wasn't there ready to greet everyone at HER OWN EVENT. This was completely unprofessional for her and yet, for the first time, she didn't really care; she wouldn't care until she could find peace of mind in what had been occurring at this company.

She looked at herself in the mirror one more time.

 _Good_ , she looked so much more controlled than yesterday. It was a bloody fantastic job that Tyrion hadn't been in the office the night before, because otherwise she would have gone into his office screaming and crying, now, however, she looked like she meant business and was far from crying. Even if the story was completely different on the inside.

If Tyrion wasn't back in the office yet, then she would just have to speak to him about it at the event later – she was sure that wouldn't go down very well at all. Thankfully though as she left the toilets with her belongings, she saw that there was a welcoming glow from his office; the blinds were usually shut to his office, like they were now, so she couldn't see what he was actually doing.

She took a deep breath and headed to his door, stopping off at her desk only to dump all her things there. She noted that the PA had left at this point – she was probably at the event where Daenerys was supposed to be right now – and so she could go to his office quite freely now. Her hands unsteadily shook as she approached the door and so she clenched them both into fists, using one of them to knock on the door.

The distant grunt of what seemed like a greeting was enough for Daenerys to grip the handle and burst into the room like a red hurricane. Tyrion was sat at his desk, like he usually seemed to be, taking a sip from a glass of red wine. He looked mildly surprised to see Daenerys there, but he always seemed to have a good control over his facial features, so she couldn't make out how surprised he actually was.

"Ah, Daenerys," He said, furrowing his brow as he set his glass down. "I was just making sure I knew my speech for the event and speaking of the event… Shouldn't you be there right now?"

He made to look at his wrist, but he didn't actually have a watch on that wrist; this was something that under usual circumstances Daenerys would have made a witty comment on or perhaps Tyrion had something witty to say, but Daenerys cut him off pretty fast.

"I needed to have a conversation with you that I didn't think would go down very well in front of potential new clients."

Yes, it was definitely a good thing that she hadn't been able to do this yesterday – imagine the lack of articulation that would have been present in _that_ conversation.

Tyrion, again, was difficult to read, but it was clear that he was intrigued regardless of whether it was good or bad news. He motioned for Daenerys to take a seat in front of his desk, but Daenerys stayed stood up – she wasn't about to rest as she spoke out about this subject. This seemed to throw Tyrion slightly.

"Well, you've set the scene – what would you like to discuss?"

She took a deep breath and let her words fall from her mouth in the most direct manner she could manage.

"I came across some documents yesterday that showed how my brother managed to take money from you and it wasn't done without help; Cersei signed off on _every_ single one of those documents. I don't know if she did it for some tax free money or if something was going on with -,"

Her voice trailed off as the way Tyrion behaved was enough to tell her what she needed to know.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?" She asked, lamely.

Her breath was caught in her throat as she watched him take a sip of his wine, buying his time before he had to answer her question. The most non-humorous of laughs left her then, as she continued to wait for his response.

He finally stopped sipping on his wine and held his hands up to her, as if admitting his faults in all this.

"When you came forward to turn your brother in, it had to be investigated… not even my sister could cover that up, but then in turn _we_ covered that up." There was a tinge of panic in his voice as he spoke. "We would have never been able to come back from that if it came out about Cersei being involved. Not that Cersei would have let us get it out anyway… But can you imagine the headlines? The scandal?"

Daenerys wasn't really listening enough to be able to reply to his questions. Her face was etched with concentration lines as she got all of this into her brain.

"Why did she do it?" Tyrion snorted a little and shrugged his arms, not giving Daenerys a clear answer.

"She was putting money aside from everyone and this was an easy way to do it, because if Viserys got caught, then he would take the full blame."

"And Viserys…" She started, not sure where she was going with it.

"He never brought her into it. Probably thought she'd still get away with it, and she had – until _now_."

It felt like Daenerys had her closure on what happened with her brother without having to ever speak to him about it. Of course she'd never really know what happened between Cersei and Viserys, because to not turn someone else in was very unlike Viserys, but she'd never have a need to know more than that about what happened. She could close the book on Viserys once more.

 _Well_ , almost.

The matter remained that Tyrion knew about this.

"You knew all this time."

"I was powerless to do anything, it would ruin the company." Tyrion paused as if he realised how Daenerys having this information could still ruin the company. He was dramatically using his hands to help his speech. "I meant what I said about making this a better place. I want us to be respected, to be better than it ever could be under my sister's reign… To change the wheel. You can see that, right?"

She believed him.

Tyrion's words brought her back to the first conversation they had about the promotion. He had said that he thought either her or Jon would be the best fit for higher management, for his vision of a non-corrupt future.

Now she knew why she was chosen without a doubt in her mind.

Finally she gave a nod in response to Tyrion's question, but it wasn't going to be the answer he really expected.

"Now I see… You could have considered a lot of women in this company, but you chose _me_ , because I'm the one who fought the injustice of my brother and your sister. I revealed the internal corruption, so I would be able to stamp out future corruption."

"That isn't -,"

"Oh, but it is." Daenerys was quick to interrupt Tyrion. She smiled courteously as she did so. "You know you're going to be watched very closely, so you've got to have the right people by your side. Jon probably has the cleanest background and I have the opposite, but I turned my brother in for the company and that's what makes all the difference."

She paced a short distance between the two chairs set in front of Tyrion's desk, as another thought nestled in her mind.

"Or perhaps you didn't know how much I actually knew about my brother's embezzlement and you thought it was best to keep me sweet."

"Daenerys -,"

"I have my brother to thank for a new job position again it seems." She let out a loud, hollow laugh, realising with that sentence how truly fucked up her life still was long after Viserys.

She had stayed in this job, screwing Daario and hoping for a promotion, when it had been Viserys who got her a job here and made her think it would be a good opportunity.

Her thoughts had been correct when she spoke to Jon the night before – men really did rule her career.

Viserys got her the very first job that she could put down on her resume. He also strongly suggested that she sleep with management in order to further propel her career, which led her straight to Daario, and then she had to compete with Jon, whom she ended up sleeping with as well, in order to prove she was worthy of a job promotion from Tyrion. Now she was finding out that all along she was only being considered due to her 'conquering corruption' with Viserys and that took her all the way back to the start.

What the hell was she doing?

She laughed again, because what else could she do? She massaged her temples, attempting to process what the correct move was for her now.

"That is not -,"

"Tyrion," She figured she could just interrupt him whenever the hell she wanted now, so she was taking full advantage of that. "If you're worried I'm going to reveal anything about Cersei then rest assured I won't – I have more than a few confidential matters that I've _actually_ kept confidential and wouldn't want them getting out. Anyway, I must get to the event that I am supposed to be running, but I am sure that doesn't matter in the slightest."

"We really should discuss this further." Tyrion slammed his fist on the table as he spoke, the clear frustration evident with how Daenerys was running off with this theory in her head.

"Oh, no," Daenerys had already turned her back on him and was heading in the direction of the door. "Completely unnecessary until I come to a conclusion of what this all means to me. I will set myself a deadline of Monday morning for a conclusion. I'll see you later this evening."

She gave him a final wave without turning to look behind her.

He was still calling after her and she was surprised that he wasn't running behind her to get her to stop, but she managed to get inside of the lift without seeing him approaching behind her. She checked the watch on her wrist, still avoiding her phone, to see she had only missed the first half hour of the party though, so she wasn't doing disastrously bad… yet.

* * *

 _JON_

Drinks were flowing, people appeared to be mingling and Jon hadn't done anything wrong to fuck up the whole night yet. In fact there was very little that Jon was meant to do now that the party was in full-swing, as he didn't have any speeches to make or people to actually mingle with as that was up to higher management and the business development managers who looked after the key clients. It was just up to him to make sure things continued to run smoothly and everyone stuck to the programme, so it wasn't absolutely vital to the proceedings that Daenerys wasn't at their own bloody event yet, but it wasn't like Daenerys to be late to anything.

He continued to wander aimlessly around the party, finding it difficult to make fake conversations with guests, as his eyes kept glancing to the main lift that people had to come out of in order to arrive at the party.

There were fewer and fewer welcome prosecco being served, as guests were only trickling few the lift doors now. Jon sighed and downed the remains of his own prosecco.

He was worried, in fact, beyond worried about Daenerys. He had seen the state she was in yesterday and he didn't know how she would cope with talking to Tyrion today… And what would have been the outcome of it all? Surely nothing good if it was taking this long for her to arrive… Or was she even going to attend the event at all?

"Jon!" His mounting thoughts were interrupted by the female voice and hand pulling on his arm. He turned his head to see an almost anxious looking Sansa. He had seen her when she first arrived, but hadn't for at least half an hour. "I've been looking for you!"

Sansa had leapt at the chance of attending the event, as this was completely and utterly her thing. He was sure she had posted a dozen photos to whatever social media app was thriving amongst the younger generation nowadays… not that Jon was exactly old, but still.

Sansa had put in a lot of effort with her outfit as well. She wore a white fitted dress and pink fur shrug around her shoulders. She usually had a dash of pink in her outfit somewhere.

"Well, I've been right here. You enjoying yourself?" Jon asked, his eyes still flitting towards the lifts whenever he could hear the doors open.

"Mmmhmm…" Sansa mumbled, non-committedly, causing Jon to give her his full attention. Sansa gave a small shrug, before speaking in a much softer voice, as if someone might overhear them. "I just thought it might be more like the parties Cersei used to post on her Instagram. There is not a _single_ famous person here."

Jon couldn't help but roll his eyes, even if he could understand why Sansa, a person who worships socialites, would be disappointed by this party.

"This is a strictly corporate event to win new business." He blandly stated. Sansa looked like she didn't grasp how this meant that they couldn't have a room full of celebrities.

"Daenerys isn't even here; I was looking forward to seeing her."

 _You and me both_ , Jon thought.

"Jon," Another interruption that wasn't the welcoming face of Daenerys. In fact it was the least welcoming face of all – Daario. After the last time they spoke, Jon really wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face. "This is quite the party you and the lovely Daenerys have put together. Where is she?"

Sansa was also staring at Jon, as if she also wanted to ask this very question.

"I believe she's getting ready." Jon said curtly, internally groaning at how even that statement made Daario's expression grow smugger. What did he have to be smug about right now?

"Being late to her own event? She knows how to make an entrance." Daario was talking in a familiar tone for someone who shouldn't be making it obvious that he had any relationship with Daenerys that wasn't professional.

And he was also completely wrong.

Daenerys would never be late to her event. She would be the first one there to make sure everything was perfect and this was why Jon was so concerned at her lack of presence now.

Jon remained silent, feeling no need to give an answer to that. So the three of them stood silently until Daario decided too much time had passed and it was best for him to continue on.

"Well, I was going to ask her if she would rather introduce Tyrion to speak instead of me doing it." He gave his smarmy smile and took a sip of his prosecco. Jon's facial expressions remained tense, as he didn't think it was worth hiding his displeasure to be in the same room as Daario, let alone in a conversation with him.

"You can wait for her to arrive to ask her that or we can just stick to how we all agreed things to run." Jon said, finally providing Daario with a forced smile, hoping this was the end of their little conversation now.

Daario froze for a second, with his prosecco seconds away from his mouth, before he broke out into his disgusting little smile again.

"Hmm…" Daario took a sip of his drink and then turned his attention finally to Sansa. "I don't believe we've met."

"Oh, I'm -,"

"This is my cousin, Sansa." Jon stepped in quickly, not wanting Daario to know anything more about her than that. Daario eyed Jon with what looked like a smirk, before holding out a hand for Sansa to shake and she did so, because she was the politest girl in the world.

"Daario," His hand seemed to stay touching Sansa's hand for just a second too long for Jon. "I figured you didn't work with us, as I would have remembered that face."

Both of Jon's hands clenched instinctively.

He could really punch Daario right now.

He _would_ punch Daario right now.

Sansa's hand squeezed Jon's arm though as his head had firmly decided on punching Daario right in the face.

He turned to look at Sansa and her face had suddenly lit up. She was paying no attention to Daario and instead was looking past Jon in the direction of the lifts.

Jon turned his head to see the most calming vision in a flurry of red. Thoughts of punching Daario, of the event, of the promotion and of his life seemed to vanish when Daenerys stepped into the room. Forget that, the whole room seemed to disappear when she was there.

He had seen her at last year's Christmas party in a white dress, a vision of innocence with hair that melted into her dress, and had decided that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

Now she was in the complete opposite, with the strong contrast of platinum blonde to bright red, looking like she could kill him with minimal effort, but he knew that would be the kind of death he would long for if he got another intimate moment with her.

She didn't look upset, but instead smiled easily around the room, already picking up a glass of prosecco. He knew how she put on a face to the crowds, so he still needed to know she was okay, but for now they were just two people in a crowded room where nobody knew about them.

Her eye caught his and his infatuation with her must have been evident on his face in that moment, as she gave the tiniest of smirks to show that they still had a secret between them. And then the moment was over as she strutted off in the complete opposite direction to him.

He cursed himself for the thousandth time for being such an utter arsehole to her.

* * *

 _DAENERYS - Part II_

She had always found it easiest to conceal her emotions when she was in a room full of people, so Daenerys was currently in her element for avoiding her thoughts and confusion. She had only been there for thirty minutes and had managed to avoid everyone she didn't want to speak to and spoken to at least fifteen acquaintances in that amount of time.

She gave another fake smile and uttered a 'thank you' to someone else who offered a compliment on her appearance or maybe they were complimenting the event, she was just thanking people without a real thought now.

Her feet froze and wouldn't let her walk further, as she saw Jon once again with some ginger haired girl at the bar. She was definitely too young to be at an event like this and definitely did not work here as Daenerys still had the names and faces of everyone who worked at the company memorised. The conclusion was that Jon must know her and she didn't like to think anything more about that point.

She downed the rest of her (third) glass of prosecco and marched the other way to find another full prosecco instantly, but her eyes caught onto a thankfully familiar _and_ welcomed face.

"Oh my gosh!" She shrieked, jumping forward to give her best friend, Missandei, a hug.

She was truly the worst person in the world. She had invited Missandei to this event as her plus one and had even ensured that she was on the list for it today, but had miraculously in all that had happened forgotten that she would be here.

It was a lovely surprise for her, but she figured that it had probably been a shitty night for Missandei so far.

Daenerys finished suffocating Missandei with her hug and pulled back with what she hoped was a smile that told her she was extremely sorry, but also required heaps of sympathy.

"You're always early," Missandei stated slowly, as if about to ramble on to a speech and this was highly likely given the dreadful circumstances Dany had left poor, slightly socially awkward Missandei in this evening. "So I arrived on time and have spent the past hour or so staring at walls, sipping on the same glass of prosecco and avoiding this creepy man who wants to talk to me about the recent developments in the retail industry."

"I am so, so, so unbelievably sorry. I have had a truly horrible past week." Missandei knew what had happened with Jon this week, but Dany hadn't really gone into the details of how Cersei had been assisting her brother in stealing money.

And now there was the new information of how Tyrion already knew about everything and had picked Daenerys for the promotion opportunity solely due to what had happened with her brother for possibly many reasons.

Hmm… it was quite a lot to get into for an event with all her fellow employees and… _oh_ , dear God, Daario.

Without saying another word, Daenerys grabbed hold of Missandei by the wrist and dragged her around the corner. They stood still for a second, as Daenerys kept an eye out for Daario, making sure he was well in the clear.

" _Wow_ , what is going on?" Missandei asked with wide eyes and a mildly concerned expression for her best friend. Dany finally looked back at Missandei and gave an unconvincing laugh.

"It's just… Daario was approaching and I've successfully avoided him all night. He's the last person I want to see here tonight…" She scrunched her nose up slightly, as she considered that. "Actually maybe not the last."

Definitely not the last.

Although she was wracking quite an extensive list of people she didn't want to see right now – Daario, Tyrion, Jon and now this ginger haired girl at the bar…

"As your best friend, I would like to say that you are acting quite manic tonight."

"And you look wonderful!" Daenerys replied, as a means of getting the attention off her, but honestly Missandei did look great. She always looked wonderful at things like this, even if she did always wear the same fitted blue dress to them, she always made it look like a million pounds.

"Yes, manic." Missandei confirmed, with a nod, but then her eyes started doing something really weird, as if they were bulging out of her head. " _So_ … just wondering who that last person would have been?"

Missandei's voice got softer and faster as she proceeded to go on with her sentence, causing Daenerys great confusion. Her whole face scrunched up before she responded in a tone that suggested it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Jon!"

"Daenerys,"

She practically jumped in the air as she heard that exact person greet her from right next to her and it took many attempts for her to try and get some coherent words out to him.

"Uh… Uhm… Jon, we… This is my friend, Missandei."

He was the last person that she wanted to see tonight, because she had no idea what to tell him about her meeting with Tyrion and that was obviously the only thing that he would have wanted to speak about right at this very moment.

"Uhm… Hello, Missandei, I'm Jon and sorry to interrupt." She stared at him as he made his way around the awkward conversation that Daenerys had created for him. It was nice to stare at him when she had a perfectly reasonable explanation for doing so.

"Yes, I've heard a lot about you."

Daenerys whipped her head from staring at Jon to glare right at Missandei. _What on earth?_ What kind of friend brought attention to the fact that their friend had conversed greatly about their complicated working relationship?

Not a very good friend!

Daenerys was still glaring at Missandei, but was being ignored as Missandei was smiling at Jon, who she towered over, as she shook his hand.

Clapping started further up the crowd and with a brief glance behind Missandei, she could see Daario picking up the microphone on the stage and so the speeches were obviously about to begin.

"Daenerys," She shuddered as he said her name again. Turning back to look at Jon, she silently begged him not to ask anything. "I was wondering if I could have a word."

Giving an apologetic smile, she gave a brief shake of her head.

"The speech," The words left her simply. As an afterthought, she added, "I'll find you afterwards."

She didn't really want to, not when her head was full of ideas and thoughts that were not fully formed at this moment in time. She had given herself a deadline of Monday morning to have them put together, so she shouldn't have to rush her decision all because of Jon.

Jon challenged her with an intense stare as if he couldn't quite believe she was blowing him off like this, but after a few seconds that felt like hours, he nodded his head and then politely smiled at Missandei.

Daenerys tried to turn back to look at the stage, although she wasn't taking in a single word that Daario was saying, but Missandei cleared her throat pointedly and stared at the profile of Daenerys until she turned to face her.

" _Yes_?"

"That was _weird_." Daenerys sighed. "Have you talked properly since…?"

Her voice trailed off, as Missandei was smart and knew that Daenerys couldn't discuss anything relating to her brother anywhere near work. Missandei still thought that the way she had left things with Jon had been the fact that Jon had found out she turned her brother in. _Oh_ , how long ago that felt now.

"Yes, and it's gotten _more_ complicated since then."

"Impossible." Daenerys let out a sharp laugh at that.

"Very, _very_ possible."

There was silence then as Tyrion was welcomed onto the stage and there was more clapping. Daenerys snuck a glance over her shoulder to where Jon was stood with the ginger-haired stranger once more. As if he could sense that Daenerys was looking over at him, his eyes glanced over to her direction and she quickly turned back around with breath caught in her throat.

"You clearly want to talk to him."

And in that moment she knew she did and she _almost_ knew what she needed, and wanted, to say to him about what had happened.

She looked at Missandei, hoping to convey with just one look that _yes_ , she did and she needed to do it now. And because Missandei was a great friend, she nudged her shoulder, pushing her in that direction.

Whilst everyone was watching the stage intently, Daenerys headed in Jon's direction, grabbing a prosecco on her way, and she walked right past him, throwing a glance his way to let him know that he should follow her. She led the way to the cloakroom, not losing her focus on the path ahead of her, because if she turned back once to see if he was following her… _Well_ , then that would be quite embarrassing.

Once she entered the cloakroom, she realised how much smaller it was than even she expected. It was completely packed with coats, aside from one little table that looked like it had no purpose in this room. She was right about the fact that it would be dimly lit and empty. Nobody was occupying the cloakroom to take care of coats at this time, because she knew that they had only requested somebody to be there at the start and end of the evening to avoid extra fees.

Taking a large sip of her prosecco, she marched right over to the table then set her glass on top of it. She braced herself to finally turn around and to her relief; Jon was close behind, shutting the door behind them.

"What did Tyrion say? I was worried about you and couldn't get hold of you. Are you okay?" Jon looked genuinely worried and that strangely relaxed Daenerys for what she was about to say.

She smiled, a soft and sweet smile, one that wasn't always natural for her.

"Everything was fine."

Jon looked confused, like he didn't believe her, but she kept on smiling. She had to make him believe that.

"He didn't know anything about it -,"

"So what is he going to do about it?" Daenerys inhaled deeply, she didn't want Jon to care this much about it, because now it was more difficult to lie. She took her time to reply, leaning against the table with her hands as she considered her response.

"He's going to investigate it further obviously, but he guaranteed me that this isn't what the company is like anymore; this isn't what it represents at all."

Finally Jon's face broke out into a little smile. Either he believed her or her smile really was that infectious.

"How do you feel about it?"

She felt like pure shit about it.

"I feel like I have as much closure as I'll have on my brother." She was always told that you successfully lie by telling half a truth and leaving out the lie entirely, so that's what she did. "Now… do you really want to be discussing business when I look like this?"

She pushed herself further against the table, giving him ample opportunity to look at her body that she was so readily offering up. He didn't stop looking at her face though.

She had never really stopped wanting him all this week, but it was just plain wrong for her to want that. Now it was still wrong, but it was excusable. She had come to a hard conclusion on her life at Lannister Enterprises and she had chosen to lie to Jon about that, because… because she didn't know if she wanted to be there anymore; it didn't feel like it was the right place for her based on what she knew, but she believed Tyrion when he said he wanted to make it good and so Jon didn't need her doubt creeping into his mind whilst she tried to come to her own conclusion.

"How do you feel about it? About the company?" His face was etched with complete concern again. How difficult was it to convince a guy that you were okay? Usually that was easy to do, wasn't it?

She pulled hard on the hand that was nearest to her until his face was centimetres from her. Her hands cradled his face, so she could look hard in his eyes and he could see she was okay.

That was another good lying tactic if you could pull it off – you give them complete eye contact.

"I believed Tyrion when he said he wanted to make this good again. I'm still in." Her mouth was so close to Jon's that she was sure she was spitting at him with the intensity of her words. Her eyes darted all over his face, making sure that concern passed and belief settled in his creases.

And then it was silent, so all that was left was the anticipation for when one of them made the miniscule move to have lips against lips. If her hands weren't cupping his face then they would have been shaking.

Finally their lips crashed into each other and her legs were hoisted to sit her up on the table. It felt like such a release to have herself entangled up in Jon again. Her body knew his now and was just planning the next step and the next step to reach pure ecstasy. As he raptured her with his mouth, his hands all over the place, she violently pulled her dress up, hating how tight and difficult it was to manoeuvre in now.

And just as she had succeeded and her hand travelled to his crotch, Jon's lips departed hers.

"Wh-what does this mean?"

She loudly sighed at that question.

Did she look like she had the answer to that?

"I don't know, what do you want?" She sounded completely out of breath and distracted, because her eyes were still staring at his lips with a deep hunger. He was not focused on that anymore and she could tell that by the hand that now ran through his hair.

"You know what I want, what do _you_ want?"

She blinked in succession.

Did she know what he wanted? He had vaguely said that he wanted something like a date with her, but was it ever made clear to her what that entailed? What that meant?

And what did she want? A scary thought crossed her mind; scary, because it was a simple one word answer – _You_. But no, that wasn't right. It couldn't be. Of course, she wanted him physically right now, but all the time? In a relationship type of way? _No_ , absolutely not.

"Please don't complicate this right now."

She pulled him back in for a heavy-handed kiss, using one hand to secure his head against hers and the other hand to pull one of his hands to the wetness in between her legs, but she could feel him fighting against her and knew this wouldn't last long.

Although it could have lasted a little longer if the door didn't open right then and reveal Daario standing in the doorway.

 _Ah_ , fuck.


	14. Come to Me

If the sky was falling over us  
If the ground below us turned to dust  
Would you come, to me?

-Come to Me, Lily & Madeleine

* * *

It all happened at once.

Jon was trying to pull away from Daenerys despite his bodily urges, Daenerys was pulling his hand to the wetness that would most definitely push him over the edge and Daario was bursting through the door. Daenerys reacted first, of course, because Jon couldn't actually see anything apart from the red and blonde that blurred his vision and Daenerys could see the door from where she sat on the table.

Jon knew something was wrong as soon as Daenerys yanked his hand back from her. He didn't need to hear the confused and exasperated statement leave her to know that something very bad was happening.

"Daario?!"

Jon leapt backwards; unable to turn around at that very moment as if Daario was there then he would see just how turned on Jon was by this entanglement. He did hear the sound of a disbelieving laugh from behind him, so he knew in that moment that yes, Daario was definitely there.

Daenerys was fumbling to get her dress down to a decent length, as she was exposing a lot at the moment. He repositioned himself in front of her and, thinking his excitement had worn off by now, turned his head to see that nobody stood in the doorway anymore.

"Shit, shit, shit." Jon muttered, as Daenerys hopped off the table and pulled the remainder of her fabric down.

He wasn't thinking of anything really apart from the knowledge that this was very bad indeed. His body seemed to be reacting before him and as soon as Daenerys had straightened herself out, he started in the direction of the door, but he didn't get very far before Daenerys pulled him back.

"Where are you going?" He simply gestured to the door that Daario had just appeared in. A sigh escaped her perfect mouth and Jon realized she didn't look as freaked out as him, just merely flustered.

" _No_ , if anyone goes after him, it should be me. You going could just make it worse." She chewed on her bottom lip and Jon shook his head, but her mind was made up. "Just… wait here for me, okay?"

Her hand trailed across the length of his arm as she abandoned him. She moved at a pace that could not be described as walking or running to get out the door. And in a second, she was gone.

Only minutes passed of Jon just pacing the tiny cloakroom, but it felt like hours to him. His palms were sweating and he was stressing himself the longer the wait got.

Daario was the worst person to find out about this.

He not only had the ammunition of the fact that Daario and Daenerys had been sleeping together and he could twist that in any way he wanted, but he now knew about himself and Daenerys. Was him and Daenerys sleeping together going to be that big an issue though in all honesty?

They were still technically at similar levels, in different departments, and so surely that would be fine – it happened all the time in businesses whether management liked it or not. Of course it wasn't exactly ideal that it all started when they were going for the same promotion.

This would piss off Daario though. Just the way he talked about Daenerys made it clear that he somehow saw her as his possession even though they were over and were they ever really together in the first place?

Jon's frustration was growing the longer he stayed in the cloakroom and he knew he had to do something in order to stop what Daario could do next.

He had an idea.

It was a stupid, reckless idea, and it was only probably going to make things worse, but his only concern was to perhaps make it better for Daenerys.

He left the cloakroom to find Tyrion. He didn't see Daenerys or Daario on his way through the event that was still bubbling with people, but Sansa seemed to spot Jon.

"What was all that about?" Sansa asked with a light tone, but with an air of suspicion. Of course it just looked like he and Daenerys had gone off to do God knows what, and that had clearly been the intention.

"It was just…" His eyes were darting around the room, looking for Tyrion. He realized the speech must have only just finished, so he should be somewhere near the stage.

"Well, is it okay if I go soon? There's a train I can take in thirty minutes?"

"Just wait one second and I'll take you there." Sansa wasn't like Arya and liked Jon to take her to the train station when he could, so she smiled as he said that.

The words had left him though before he really thought about it, because Daenerys had asked him to wait for her. What would really happen though if he stayed?

He would have to tell her what he had done, well, what he had still yet to do and he knew her reaction wouldn't be pleasant. And they would sleep together, that was for sure – he couldn't control himself and she was being particularly seductive tonight. And then he would once again not know where he stood with her.

It was best to leave it for now.

Jon found Tyrion near the stage, talking to a group of people, who were probably potential clients or already clients.

"Apologies for interrupting," Jon announced with a shaky voice, as he watched the conversation stop dead in its tracks. "Tyrion, I need to speak about something urgently with you."

* * *

The weekend had crept by slowly.

It was filled with mainly Jon trying to keep up his old routine of going to the local market to buy his food, playing video games with Sam, spending time with Ghost and looking through his ratty cookbooks for an idea of what to make for when Arya and Sansa came around on the Sunday.

The optimal word in that sentence being _trying_. Nothing could truly take his mind off Daenerys and all the terrible occurrences that had unraveled between them, but he was at least trying.

He didn't want to be the one who caved in and contacted her, because he didn't know where the hell he stood with her. Sure, she had been the one to get him into the closet Friday night and initiate sexual relations with him, but she refused to answer his questions about what they were doing.

In fact the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was the only one who asked about what their position was and what the hell they were doing together – she was the one who avoided the questions.

Although he had been completely in the wrong before and he didn't really deserve a second chance with her, she still seemed to forgive him. He was willing to do anything for her, and his actions on Friday evening certainly supported that fact, however chasing her if she wasn't interested wasn't something he could do.

And so he ignored the urge to text her or call her (this being a slightly horrific thought for Jon, as he rarely called anyone), and he just stayed trying to stick to his routine. A part of him was excited for the opportunity to distract himself further with Arya and Sansa coming around Sunday afternoon, but when they did arrive, he realized this was not the case.

First of all, it was Sunday afternoon and so the thought of seeing Daenerys the following morning was literally all that could possibly his mind. It seemed like the hardships of the weekend were floating by him as she was mere stretches away.

Lastly, Arya and Sansa didn't seem to really want to discuss anything else other than Daenerys.

"Sansa agrees that Daario is a massive cunt." Arya said, using her thumb to point in Sansa's direction. Sansa merely gasped and shook her head wildly.

"I most certainly didn't put it like that." Jon turned back to getting Ghost ready for his walk. It was always a bit of a struggle as the beast would get excited as soon as anyone got their shoes on. Seeing as Sansa and Arya had only walked through the door a few minutes earlier and hadn't bothered taking their shoes off for the walk meant that Ghost had been running around crazily for the past ten minutes, anticipating his walk.

"You said you didn't like the look of him." Arya continued saying in the background, as Jon finally managed to attach Ghost's lead to his collar.

"That doesn't translate to 'He's a…' Well, you know, what you said." Sansa headed to the front door, as she must have seen Ghost bounding towards the pair of them with a Jon restraining him from behind. "I thought you said you never met him anyway!"

It was almost like Jon wasn't even there and they were just continuing the conversation they were having from the walk over from the train station.

"Doesn't mean I don't know he's an absolute cunt – _wait_ , Sam!" Arya called, bobbing her head into the living room where Sam was currently sat, playing what looked like a rather brutal shooting game. "Are you coming along with us?"

"Nah," Jon could see Sam press pause on the game to give his full attention to Arya. "I'd only just slow you down, but I'll see you later."

"Yeah, you just keep practicing and maybe I won't kick your ass this time." Arya said with a loud laugh as if she didn't think any amount of practice would help him when it came to beating Arya.

Jon pushed Arya towards the front door and gave Sam a small wave.

"Feel free to have dinner with us later if you don't have anything in." Jon offered, trying to resist as Ghost continued to pull him to head out the door.

"Cheers, mate." Sam smiled, before turning back to his game.

Jon finally let Ghost pull him right out the door. Ghost only had to walk on his lead until they got to their regular country route away from cars and then he was free to roam around as he pleased. He was okay with other dogs in the sense that he wouldn't attack any, but just stand still as he growled at them and he was the same with people. Jon always felt as long as Ghost wasn't approaching anyone with that growl then it was perfectly fine for him to be off the lead.

"So…" Arya began as they walked down the side of the small country road, quickly approaching the country path they always took. Jon turned his head ever so slightly to see Arya nudging Sansa behind him and he instinctively rolled his eyes. "Sansa and I were both confused what happened between you and this Dany girl on Friday."

"That's a surprise." Jon said in a tone that suggested that he definitely was not surprised by this and he definitely wasn't. They had clearly been discussing this amongst themselves.

"Well, I thought it looked like everything would go well between you when you disappeared, but then you left with me." Sansa was treading the subject carefully, as if she had sensed Jon's sarcasm in his earlier statement.

"Why did you disappear with her?" Arya asked with a complete affectation of innocence. Jon sighed.

"That doesn't matter." Jon simply grumbled, opening the gate that stood between them and the country path.

"How are things between you then?" Sansa asked, still pushing the subject, much to Jon's chagrin.

"I..." He paused, as he let Ghost off his lead and watched as he went off to excitedly sniff some flowers. "I don't really know how to answer that."

"But she's forgiven you for your fuck-up?" Arya asked. Jon at first shrugged his shoulders.

He had only really told Arya about the whole story, but clearly she had been discussing it with Sansa, however even Arya didn't even know the whole story anymore as there had been even more developments since then. It was better he kept it as simple as he could.

"I think so, I mean, I don't know." There was no point even trying to hide his confusion. He had been in a state of constant confusion since the word 'go' with Daenerys. "Anyway, can we talk about something else? Anything else?"

If the rest of the evening was going to be like this then he wasn't going to be able to cope. He started walking away, getting them to actually begin their country route, instead of just standing around and discussing his embarrassing situation with Daenerys.

He felt Sansa join him by his side pretty quickly, but he kept his eyes on Ghost.

"We would just love to see you with someone – it's been so long since you ever even displayed a serious interest in someone, so we just want to see if it might work with her."

It was her version of apologising and it definitely softened Jon. He knew if he was going to have anyone to speak to about this then it was going to be them and hadn't he already handed over most of the horrible details to Arya already anyway?

"I don't think it's going to happen. I don't really know what she wants." His voice was gentler, giving up his insecurities to his cousins.

He finally looked at Sansa, who was giving him a smile that said she knew something that he didn't, whilst Arya threw a stick for Ghost to chase after.

" _Oh_ , Jon, it seemed like she liked you. Girls can tell these things about girls." She said with a determined nod.

"How do I figure that out then?" Jon asked with a short laugh to show he was joking even if a small part of him was curious in how he could determine that.

"Usually I just punch someone to work that out." Arya supplied out of nowhere, no longer playing with Ghost.

" _Arya_ …" Sansa groaned, looking up to the sky, but not giving Arya more of a response.

"What?" Arya asked, rather defensively. Jon simply laughed.

"How does that help figure anything out?"

"It sometimes does." She squinted, furrowing her brow. "I guess it doesn't really help in your situation though."

"Not at all."

Ghost suddenly began barking, bringing everyone out of their current conversation. Ghost ran off in the direction they had just come from. Jon turned around and everything stopped like it had on Friday night.

Nobody could have prepared Jon for a sight so shocking – Daenerys wrapped up in a jumper and coat, standing on his country path, kneeling down to welcome Ghost towards her.

Ghost wasn't growling for once and was getting nearer to her to be stroked. Daenerys wasn't looking up at Jon and that was a good thing, because he was absolutely shocked by everything that he couldn't hide that fact and give her the grim expression she must have been so used to seeing on him.

All he knew was Daenerys was here with the obvious reason to see him. Oh and how did she know where he lived? But she was here to see him, so that small logical question was drowned out.

He also knew that despite her just dressed in the most casual of attire with her hair piled on top of her head, she was just as beautiful, if not more so, as she was on Friday night.

How could he have spent the whole weekend trying to distract himself and not think about her? How could he possibly not think about her?

Finally Daenerys gave Jon eye contact, as she stroked under Ghost's chin and gave him what could only be described as a nervous smile.

Sansa gave Jon one last thought on their last conversation before his attention was taken up completely by Daenerys.

"I think you might be able to figure it out."


	15. Lover, where do you live?

This is the penultimate chapter, so enjoy!

And if I ever see you again, my love  
All I'm ever gonna do  
Is send shivers down that spine of yours

Hihasakite, Lover, where do you live?

* * *

Dany had thought that if Daario found out about her and Jon that it would be the end of her promotion. If Daario liked her in the way it seemed that he did, like a possession, like a pretty thing on his arm, then he would probably stop at nothing to destroy the promotion for her if there was no expectation of getting her back. He would twist the truth about the motives of her seeing Daario or Jon.

However, the reality couldn't be any more different. She was more flustered by the fact that she was caught with her dress pulled up to her upper thigh rather than Daario being the one who caught them in that compromising position.

She realized quickly there was actually very little that he could do to disturb her standing or rather he could do damage, but she may not actually care at all about it. So with that in mind, she pulled Jon back.

"Where are you going?" She asked, knowing perfectly well what he was intending on doing.

He waved his hand wildly in the direction of the door. He looked like a raging bull, behavior that would just charge Daario up further. Two bulls attacking each other over her? It was bound to end in an alarming mess.

She sighed, knowing she would have to talk to Daario, but there was no anger or desperation in her, just calmness.

" _No_ , if anyone goes after him, it should be me. You going could just make it worse." It wasn't a lie, it would make it _so_ much worse. Especially so as Jon had no idea how she was feeling about her job and the indecision that enveloped her.

Jon shook his head at her decision, but she simply ignored it. She didn't really understand in that moment why he would be so eager to speak to Daario instead of her.

She began to chew on her lip as she watched Jon's stress lines crease over and over again; watching him made her completely aware of the fact that she wanted to watch that face and all its' stress for at least another couple of hours that night.

"Just… wait here for me, okay?"

He didn't really even react to her request, but it felt like a yes to her and so she confidently walked out of the room without a glance behind her.

Finding Daario wasn't exactly hard. He was slumped against a wall that led to the toilets, the only other dim and quiet corridor at this event. He seemed to have found himself another glass of prosecco in this time and was nursing it in his apparent state of sadness.

This whole image made her want to roll her eyes, because who was he trying to fool that he was devastated by her and Jon?

"You've chosen outside the toilets to drown your sorrows?" She asked as she slowed her pace to an absolute stop in front of him. He turned his face up to meet hers and there was only a brief moment where she wondered whether he would imitate her smirk or not – he did.

"I knew something was going on there." He said in such a bitter way that showed he was only smirking because that's all he really knew how to do. Daenerys shifted uncomfortably on the spot as she figured out how to answer that.

"Well, you were correct." She said, keeping her face steady in order to not show him any emotions.

"You know that I could go to Tyrion and tell him all about us, then Jon and… you must see how unprofessional that would look on your part, right?" He was smirking now, thinking he had her in an awkward position. A chuckle left him and he took a victorious sip of his prosecco. This was the only thing that slightly riled Dany up.

"Oh, _come on-_ " She began in an overly energetic voice, stopping herself only when one of the toilet doors behind them swung open and somebody exited, rejoining the party. She continued on in a softer voice. "Come on, you know you're not going to actually do that."

"How can you be so sure? You think I care about you that much?" He asked almost challengingly, growing to his full height to leer over her petite figure.

"No, you don't." Daenerys replied with a miniscule shake of her head. "But you wouldn't risk anything happening to your career."

He shrugged, because she was right. There wasn't really anything to discuss here anymore, as she knew he wouldn't actually do anything with this new information. He was just whining and being a baby about the situation, because he didn't get what he wanted… or used to want.

However it didn't feel right to not even give him an inkling of what was happening with her. After all he had always been a good business insight to her.

"And I might not exactly care about all this anymore."

His eyebrow cocked up then, his surprise looking more than when he had even seen Jon and Dany together.

"What? You're throwing away a promotion for _him_?" Daenerys snorted at that question.

" _No_. No, you told me that someone knew about Viserys before me; you must have known I would have found out what the hell you meant."

Daario leaned back against the wall and sighed. He didn't seem to have a response and so she continued on.

"All of it feels wrong now and I can't tell Jon that I'm feeling like this, because -,"

"Wow, your feelings for him are that genuine?" Her only reaction to this was a widening of her eyes, but it was enough of a response for Daario. "That's disgusting… So you and him are that different from you and me?"

She paused, not sure how much she actually wanted to admit to him. Any of it could be used against her by Daario.

"It is different. Completely different."

The words leaving her felt like an admittance of deeper feelings that she didn't want to feel.

"Do I have your word that you wouldn't say anything to Tyrion about us or Jon?" Her voice got shakier as she got to the part about Jon. She didn't know if it was something that he could even be punished for, but she didn't want him to get punished at _all_.

"You know I can't promise you that." His mouth was in the shape of a smirk again. "If it helps me out then I'd tell and you'd do the same to me. You know you would, because you're just like me when it comes to business."

She didn't want to be just like Daario in that way – a cutthroat person in the corporate world. She didn't want to hold information against anyone for her own benefit; she wanted to be clean, to be good.

"Right now it doesn't serve me any good though, so I won't say anything for the time being."

It became clear to her that he had always intended to tell her about Viserys and possibly to tell Jon about her turning in Viserys, but he was just waiting for the right time to drop that bomb. He waited to tell Jon just as he got close to Dany and he dropped her a hint about her not being the first to know to maybe ensure she didn't get the promotion or in the hopes it would bring her closer to him again?

Whatever the reasons, he seemed to be more conniving than she gave him credit for.

And she knew, for the first time since she had been in that company, that she was better than that. She was better than playing games, better than twisting people up for her own advancement and better than cruelness.

"Goodbye, Daario."

He looked puzzled as she smiled at him and turned away to walk in the opposite direction, but he didn't stop her.

She wanted to see Jon in order to tell him the truth of what had happened and finally answer that stupid fucking question that he wanted her to answer earlier. Most importantly she wanted to resume where they had left off.

He wasn't in the cloakroom when she walked through the door though. Her eagerness to see him again was struck down with a strong pang of disappointment. Her feet stopped moving and her arms fell limply to her sides.

She understood then as she stood in the middle of the empty cloakroom why Jon wanted to go see Daario instead of her – he didn't want her to be with Daario alone.

Did he leave because the conversation took longer than expected? Did he think something had happened between her and Daario?

All that mattered was she was alone now.

* * *

She had stayed till the end of the event, because if Daenerys was going to say that she put together an event, then she was going to see it through till the very end. Jon did not make an appearance for the rest of the event, along with the young lady who had been with him.

Despite the fact that she had a strong idea about why he had left, she still felt a bubbling rage at him just leaving like that. Hadn't he just announced that he would leave the company with her? Now he was leaving an event even though she had requested he stay?

Missandei spent the night at hers as she had correctly evaluated that Daenerys required more wine when they got home and to talk about anything else apart from Jon Snow, so they did just that.

Daenerys, regretfully, spent the whole of Saturday nursing a gargantuan hangover. She ate her weight in ice cream and took turns to cuddle all her cats. She would never admit to anyone out loud the number of hours she wasted watching some sappy movies and shows on Netflix.

Her eyes were not focused on what she was watching though as her eyes were pretty much glued to her phone, waiting for some sort of message that she would not receive.

Sunday morning she awoke feeling extremely pissed off with her behavior the day before. Why had she been drowning in comfy blankets and self-pity for the whole day? That wasn't something Daenerys Targaryen would ever, _ever_ do? And over what? A complete and utter emotional breakdown over the current state of her life?

No, it would not do.

She practiced yoga for an hour, went for a long run, took a refreshing hour and then began tidying up her house from the mess of takeaway food she had collected the day before.

"Viserion," She started, as he was purring near her. She had been giving him greater affection than the others since his scare, because of just that – his scare on his life was a scare on Dany's sanity. "Can you remember the last time I had a takeaway?"

Viserion purred happily as he rubbed against her leg.

"Neither can I."

She hurriedly got rid of the pizza boxes and decided she would go for a fresh food shop that day to get rid of the toxicity that currently presided inside her.

"Perhaps later I can also pick all of you up some new treats," She continued speaking to Viserion for no real reason other than to talk out loud without feeling like a crazy person. "Oh, and some ingredients for making a smoothie! Honestly I am having the most productive day to…"

Her voice drifted off as she knew the end of that sentence.

To distract herself.

It was like yesterday was a means to distract herself that hadn't work in the slightest and just made her feel more lost, so today she took on a different approach entirely. It had been a little more successful, but it was suddenly failing as she admitted to herself it was all just a distraction.

She had to determine what she wanted to do with the company, by tomorrow morning, but a voice in her head told her she would never be able to make a clear decision until she saw Jon.

Her decision on the company and her feelings for Jon were not interlinked. It wasn't like she was choosing one thing over the other – she knew she could have both things at once.

However her want for him and avoiding him was eating at the valuable decision making part of her brain, so if she saw him then maybe her brain would decide.

She had been avoiding her feelings all this time in order to focus on her career, but now it seemed like she had to face those feelings head on to get anywhere.

Viserion purred at her again and Daenerys flicked out of her internal monologue with a smile on her face.

* * *

Just over two hours later, she had taken a train in order to stand in front of what was supposed to be his door.

It was a simple decision to go to illegal lengths in order to see him face to face. Of course, she had his number and could have very easily texted or called him, but she knew she _needed_ to see him in the flesh to have any clarity. And wasn't that sort of a rush to turn up expectedly at your lover's house?

Or was it the first step to becoming a full-blown stalker?

Either way, she was here now, after contacting Kit, her reliable I.T guru, to help her break the law to find out where Jon lived for somewhat romantic purposes. The HR department had everyone's personal details, like home addresses, on the database and so Kit was able to easily hack into that.

Daenerys stared at the exterior of the little cottage that apparently belonged to Jon Snow and wondered how Jon lived in such a cute, idyllic-seeming place. With a deep breath, she knocked on the front door, not wanting to waste any more time.

There was no answer for at least a minute and so Daenerys knocked again with increased frustration. The door burst open then revealing someone that held no resemblance to Jon.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, staring at the extremely plump man who had a face full of friendly confusion. "I might have the wrong house."

"I'd say you definitely do." He said with a pleasant laugh. She frowned in disappointment.

"Do you know where Jon Snow lives?" She asked, watching as the man's face changed from confusion to enlightenment.

"Jon? You're looking for Jon?" She nodded her head, feeling hope surge through her again. "He's literally just gone on a walk. If you follow that road there then you'll get on the path he takes. It shouldn't take long for you to catch up."

Daenerys appreciated the fact that he seemed to understand how important her visit was and he was eager to unite her with Jon as quickly as possible. She smiled warmly at him.

"Thank you!"

* * *

She quickly realized as she began the walk down to the route that Sam had pointed out to her that she was wearing entirely the wrong shoes for this sort of journey. Her shoes were getting caked with mud and her footing was slightly unbalanced on the icy pavement.

She slipped several times on her journey and it was honestly a very stressful situation for her. She kept going though as she knew who she would find eventually.

Turning in at the path, she figured she would still have to walk a little bit to find any sign of life, but she was wrong. Almost immediately there was a soft barking sound and a dog came bounding at her. She thought for a second it might want to attack her, but it stared up at her with such a friendly face that she tentatively began to pat their head. She knelt down to ruffle the fur under the chin.

With a glance upwards, she saw Jon there.

All she could do was smile then, as there was her clarity.

Oh, and two girls standing behind him. Why hadn't she remembered the case of the ginger haired girl at the party? There she was right now.

Jesus fucking Christ. Why was her attempt at some sort of romantic epiphany for her turning into a disaster within seconds?

Jon approached her fairly quickly.

"What -,"

"Who are they?" Her words left her in a much more abrupt fashion than she intended them to. She didn't even let poor Jon get his own question out and he seemed like the one more entitled to ask something, as she was the one turning up completely uninvited.

"They're my cousins," Daenerys expression quickly turned from her anger/confused mixture to sheepish as Jon told her. She almost felt like she owed them _both_ an apology for her silent inexplicable jealously.

"Oh, _well_ , that's nice. Very nice." She was starting to feel awkward now. Her whole dramatic expectations of how this would play out were being festered in the reality.

"I needed to see you," She rather pathetically said out loud, her eyes focused on the ground between them, so that she didn't have to look him directly in the eye.

"How the hell did you know where I'd be?" His voice sounded too gruff to be pleased to see her. Maybe he really did think something had happened between her and Daario, or he was just angry that she hadn't given him an answer that night.

"Well, that would be a slightly illegal answer." A tiny laugh left her, but she didn't know if Jon would find that funny at all. "I just -,"

"Should we go ahead with Ghost?" Daenerys whipped her head up to see the brunette girl cupping her hand by her mouth to shout over to him. The ginger girl hit the brunette's arm after she finished calling over. Jon sighed deeply.

It was clear to Dany that this was not going to play out at all how she had imagined it. This was terrible timing for her to turn up and she should have really said by now that she could just leave.

"Ghost refuses to walk with anyone, but me." Jon started, scratching his head like he really did have no idea what he was supposed to do. Daenerys did feel bad for adding herself to this situation and was about to finally say that she should leave, but then Jon continued speaking.

"Are you okay to come with me?"

Daenerys eagerly nodded her head.

"Of course, I came to speak to you, so…" She trailed off, feeling like a further explanation of that would only be futile – he already knew why she was there.

"Well, we won't be long." Jon's words were blunt and the disappointment was etched on her face. "I need to get dinner ready for them."

Jon ushered the girls over, as Daenerys continued to stand there awkwardly.

"You go back to the house, I'll be there soon." Jon didn't look at Daenerys whilst he spoke, but the two girls were giving her their full attention. The ginger one being more subtle about it than the brunette.

"Is she coming for dinner too?" The brunette said this, openly pointing over. Daenerys looked down at her feet with a small smile at the sass that this girl seemed to have.

"Don't say that like she isn't there… Hello, ignore my sister, I'm Sansa." The now introduced Sansa gave Daenerys a polite smile. Jon was shifting uncomfortably, his eyes finally flitting to Daenerys, as if asking her not to reply.

"I'm Arya!"

"Oh, hi, I'm Daenerys." She smiled softly at the both of them, feeling a certain kind of warmness already towards the both of them.

"Yeah, we know." Arya said with a shrug and the casualness with it caused Daenerys to smirk in Jon's direction, despite the fact he wasn't paying her any attention again. Had he been speaking about her to his cousins? This offered some sort of hope. "So, dinner… is she coming?"

"Just get back to the house, okay?" Jon sounded beyond tired of his cousins and was practically shooing them away. Arya sighed and pulled on Sansa's arm.

" _Jesus_ , fine, we'll leave."

All that could be heard was the sound of sloshing mud and cracking leaves as the two girls left. Ghost circled Jon before starting off ahead of the both of them again. Jon began walking in Ghost's direction without another word to Daenerys. She wondered how to build up the momentum of this conversation with Jon once more. It seemed like everything she wanted to say was shrinking away fast.

"I didn't realise your dog would be so big." She commented, with no response.

Unfortunately it clearly it was not the time for small talk.

"Why didn't you wait for me?"

As she couldn't think of the correct words to say, let alone the right order to say them in, she decided to put some of the pressure on him – again, not entirely fair on him.

She rushed forward to keep pace with him, as she needed to hear every word he said and he wasn't easy to hear at the best of times.

"I dropped Sansa off at the train station." His eyes stayed on Ghost, as his dog continued to sniff the shrubbery.

"I thought you would have stayed for the duration of _our_ event," She pressed, not buying what he said at all.

"We didn't really have much more to do."

"I thought… You didn't let me know why you had left."

The expectation versus reality of this conversation was really coming into play again. Why was it proving so difficult to get the words out? She had known what to say before, she had planned it out on the stupid train to get here.

"It just seemed like the best thing to do."

It wasn't the best thing for her. At all.

Was he really saying the best thing had been to hurt her like that?

She stopped walking, but Jon didn't stop.

"Nothing happened with Daario." She said simply, hoping this was enough to get him to stop being so cold with her.

He stopped walking then and turned his head ever so slightly behind him as if to acknowledge he had heard her.

"What?"

She sighed, walking over to him to close up the distance that had grown there.

"If you left, because you thought something had happened with Daario, then I'm telling you -,"

"I didn't think that." He finally looked at her properly then and she lost her words again.

"Oh, okay."

She started off the walk this time around as she didn't want to be stood on the same spot for too long with the chill that was settling in the air due to the sun setting.

"Just so you know, I don't think Daario will say anything and it doesn't matter if he does." She had finally remembered her opening statement for her big, slightly romantic speech, but Jon started speaking almost immediately to change the subject.

"Come on, it's getting cold and I need to get dinner ready."

"Right…" Daenerys said, her momentum to speak and tell Jon how she felt completely lost again.

Jon whistled for Ghost to come back and in all of this Daenerys felt most sad for the poor dog. Her presence had caused him to get a far shorter walk than he needed as a dog of that size.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?" He asked, as he turned and started walking in the opposite way they had been going. "It's just some homemade soup and bread. I just need to heat it up."

She simply nodded, too confused for anything else, and Jon nodded back at her, not giving away any inner monologue he might be having with his expression.

* * *

The walk up to his small cottage was not much better than the walk down. Sure she had company this time around, but it wasn't like they were speaking to each other on the way up. However she did enjoy the fact that it was still just as slippery to climb up as it was on the way down, as Jon reached out to steady her with the hand that wasn't grasping Ghost's lead.

Her cheeks were absolutely flushed at this contact, regardless of the fact that she couldn't really feel it through the layers of clothing she had on. She let out a nervous laughter and saw that he was smiling. His hand remained on her shoulder longer than it needed to and with a glance towards his cottage, she knew she had to get this out now.

"Jon, before we go in, because you might not want me to come in anymore" She started, the feeling of his hand still on her shoulder edging her forward. "Uhm… I lied. Tyrion knew about Cersei and Viserys."

Jon's face was a picture in that moment – a picture of perfect confusion. Ghost was pulling towards the front door that was nearly in reach, but Jon was holding back now, staring at Daenerys, begging her to continue on.

"Please don't be angry with me. I still believe he's genuine in his position and his want to wipe out Cersei's presence from the company, so this shouldn't change you wanting to get a promotion, but I knew it might anyway, as it's changed mine."

Jon's expression hadn't softened at all from the harsh lines of confusion that had settled there.

"Why?"

"I think… _no_ , I know that I've been considered for the wrong reasons and that doesn't feel right." Jon dropped his hand, his brow getting more furrowed instead of less so.

"No, I mean, we had a deal that I would leave if you wanted to, so why should it not change my mind?"

Daenerys smiled despite herself due to what he was suggesting. She worded her next sentence carefully, making sure he understood where he was wrong.

" _No_ , we had a deal that we would both leave if we thought there was still a possibility of corruption, not that you would leave _for_ me."

There was a silence that settled and Daenerys allowed it to as she wanted him to process it properly. She felt like the conversation had gone rather well actually; he didn't seem to want to kill her or tell her to leave, so that was a positive result in her opinion.

"Are you saying that you want to leave?" Jon finally broke the silence, his confusion seeming to settle as he got his head around it.

"I don't know, but I will." She left out the part where she felt like she needed to see him before even attempting to come to a conclusion.

"Can I help? Do you want to talk about it?"

Daenerys would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy the sudden shift in coldness on Jon's part. Despite her still not offering up any answer to his question or confessing her feelings to him, he was showing his care towards her.

"No," She shook her head firmly, not taking her eyes off his.

She knew fully well that her face was lighting up as she stared at him, but she didn't even want to hide it any more. It seemed that Jon didn't need to hide his feelings either, as he smiled back at her and found her hand in her coat pocket with his own gloved one to hold it softly.

"Okay, just dinner then."

Getting a better look at the inside of Jon's house, Daenerys could confirm that it was definitely more homely than she would have expected it and yet it suited Jon perfectly with the exposed woodwork and books dotted around everywhere. Everything was close together with the dining room being the small room that everyone entered into, the living room off to the right, a set of stairs hidden away in the corner and the kitchen on the far off side of the dining room.

Ghost seemed to take up the whole space no matter what room he was in. He ran straight in to the kitchen for his water bowl and Jon followed after him, turning back to Daenerys as he went in.

"Uh… you can wait out here. Arya, can you get the table ready?" He called out the last part, directing it to the living room.

Arya and Sansa didn't seem that surprised by Dany's entrance. They were in the middle of what looked like an intense game with Sam that involved Arya swearing and Sansa sitting demurely on the sidelines with her phone in hand.

Daenerys removed her coat and got to awkwardly sitting down at the table.

"It's like I'm fucking back at home," Arya muttered under her breath as she stormed through to the kitchen. Sansa seemed to decide to help with setting the table and came over as well.

Daenerys just stayed awkwardly at her place, wondering what on earth she was doing invading Jon's life like this. She watched him through the distorting glassed sliding doors to the kitchen where he busied himself around the oven.

"Would you like a drink, Daenerys?" Sansa asked, hovering between the kitchen and the dining area.

"Yeah, Dany, Jon's got some expensive wine locked away that I'm sure he'd _love_ sharing." Daenerys let out the softest laugh, taking note that Arya was quick to refer to her as Dany.

She decided then and there that she liked both of these girls immensely.

Although Daenerys loved a glass (or two or three) of wine, she decided to not take Arya up on that offer.

"I'll just have a water, thank you." Sansa smiled and went off to get it for her as Arya slumped down at the table, clearly coming to the conclusion that she was done with her chores.

"It seems like you all are very close, that's nice." Daenerys commented, smiling softly in the direction of those blurry windowed doors.

"Well, Jon's my favourite brother and Sansa's okay, I suppose." Sansa walked back in that point with Dany's water and this allowed her a few moments to think over what Arya said.

Brother? She was sure Jon had said cousins? Perhaps she had misheard or maybe Sansa was the only cousin. He and Arya looked very similar, so maybe they were brother and sister.

"Sorry, I thought you were his cousin?" She asked, taking a sip of water as she waited for a response. Sansa seemed to be trying to silently gather what she had missed and Daenerys could swear that Sansa was throwing Arya a concerned glance that Arya appeared to not be noticing.

"He was living with us since I was a kid, so more like a brother."

Now Daenerys was properly furrowing her eyebrows, she had definitely missed something or Jon had missed something.

"So his parents…?" Daenerys asked, causing a train reaction of Sansa nudging Arya violently and Arya cringing rather dramatically.

" _Shit_ , well, his parents died, right?" Her voice was rather high-pitched now, but she was saying everything slowly – a sign that she wasn't sure how much she should have actually said.

Daenerys was frozen then.

Yes, this was definitely something Jon had missed out.

"How?" Her voice croaked out of her.

Arya and Sansa exchanged glances before Sansa tried to respond.

"I think that's better coming from Jon -,"

"Car crash." Arya said, solemnly. She received another nudge from Sansa that appeared to be sharper. "He probably should've told her."

Dany's heart was sinking for him and how she wished she had found that out from his mouth. She didn't need to ask any more questions about it, because she felt like she knew the rest of it. The way he made sure she wore her seatbelt in the taxi, his general unwillingness to take a car as a form of transport and then she had seen those scars with the strange background story of skateboarding… but she didn't want to think what she was currently thinking.

Was he in that car as well?

Jon walked through the door then with an inquisitive pull of his eyebrows at the awkward silence that settled in the kitchen.

"Oh, I was wondering about that dinner?" Sam asked from the doorway to the living room, making the situation even more awkward. He seemed to finally spot what he was walking into and sheepishly looked at Jon. "I'll just have it in the living room."

She really felt like a total invasion into Jon's life now, but she couldn't leave so instead she hid her pity for Jon with a bright smile that took over her whole face. Jon was still clearly confused but nevertheless he returned the smile.

* * *

Despite the initial awkwardness and the revelation that was playing on Dany's mind, the dinner was actually rather pleasant. They ate their carrot and coriander soup then Sansa and Arya had several questions for Daenerys in regards to her life. She answered them all and gave them both her own questions.

They got to such a strange level of familiarity in that short time. Sam joined them in playing some sort of board game, but then he headed to his bedroom and it seemed like everyone needed to leave then.

Arya stood up rather abruptly at around 9pm to announce the fact she needed to leave.

"Dany, you going for the train?" Jon and Daenerys exchanged a look and it was kind of an unspoken understanding that she definitely would not be getting the train. It seemed that both Sansa and Arya understood as well, as the question seemed to fizzle out unanswered.

Goodbyes were said, but Daenerys focus was too much on Jon now. As soon as they left she walked right up to him and kissed him affectionately on the lips before he could say or do a single thing. The kiss was not one of passion, but a way for her to express that she had a heavy weight of care for him in her heart right now. She pulled away from his lips, not glancing up at him, and rested her head against his shoulder.

She knew he didn't really know what to do as she couldn't feel his arms around her, but that was okay.

"What are you going to do? That's what you've been thinking about, right?" His voice was muffled as he spoke into her hair.

"No," She pulled away from his neck that she had been breathing heavily onto. "I've been thinking about you… I found out about your parents, Jon, I'm so sorry."

He stared at her and she feared he would close up or get angry or anything, but speak to her. The silence continued, but he pulled on one of her hands to take her towards the stairs that she figured led up to his bedroom.

The bedroom was small with the bed taking up most of the room, but it was warm and it warmed her straight to her core.

"We don't have to talk about it," She practically whispered out. "I know you probably don't want to talk about it and that's why you never told me, but I just had to say something."

He walked over and sat at the edge of the bed. Daenerys quickly followed, not wanting to be apart from him during this weird and upsetting conversation.

"This just makes me feel worse that I forced you to say your story and now you're being lovely like this with me." He did sound very upset about it, but Daenerys shrugged with a small smile that was supposed to stamp out his guilt.

"This is a bit different."

" _No_ , it's not… I should have been like this with you." He wasn't looking up at her and so she felt like she couldn't do a proper job of consoling him. She held one of his hands tightly in her tiny one.

"You didn't know."

She heard him breathe heavily and realized she was holding her own breath as she waited for him to tell her what had happened.

"My dad was a bit of a drinker and used to fight with my mum a lot, but she loved him. I was only a child when it happened. He was drunk and they were fighting in the car… I don't really remember it, but my mum wasn't wearing her seatbelt otherwise she might have – anyway I ended up with these," He gestured at his chest. "My uncle was always going to take me in, my dad's family were never really around."

It became clear to Daenerys why their relationship had been so messy until now – they were two broken people and once all their broken pieces had been laid out in front of each other, they might be able to fix them for each other.

"That's awful, Jon." No words she could have said would help with what had happened and so she had to just acknowledge that it was terrible.

"It was a long time ago." He may have tried to sound dismissive, but it didn't work. It obviously still upset him as much today as it would have done when he was a boy.

"That would live with you forever."

She kissed him on the cheek and didn't let go of his hand.

Her heart was beating fast as she sat in this close intimacy with him. Her heart only had beat this fast for her career or an adrenaline kick, never for a person. That simple heart pounding moment was enough to convince her that she was right to utter the next words.

"You asked me what I wanted and I couldn't answer. Before I say it out loud, do you still feel the same?"

He took a while to process her question, but then his mouth twitched in a smile and he nodded his head once.

"Okay," She breathed shakily, getting ready to say the words, to put her heart on the line. "I want you."

He didn't reply and cupped her face with one of his big hands to kiss her firmly.

How many times had their lips touched now? It felt like dozens and yet this felt different to all the other times. This felt like a kiss that promised trust and comfort, whilst also excitement.

The sweetness of the initial kissing soon took a turn for scandalous as it always seemed to do for them. She removed his jumper and pushed him heavily on to the bed to lie flatly so she could straddle him easily. She took his skin in, roughly kissing his neck and letting her lips trail down his torso.

The roughness subsided as her lips approached his scars, she delicately kissed each one and this was her own way of showing that she cared and respected his past. She quickly approached her destination – the rim of his jeans. Her fingers began to unbuckle the buttons with a desperation that came out whenever she had Jon's body under her.

"Dany, I need to tell you something about the other night." His voice was strained, like he really didn't want to break their physical contact and Dany certainly didn't want it broken either.

"It _really_ doesn't matter right now." She sat up again, sighing before bringing his lips to hers once more.

She didn't have to fight as hard against his skin to stop him thinking about other things tonight, as he seemed to just melt against her lips. Little did he know that she was melting against him as well and so they melted together – a candle melting to the end of the wick.


End file.
